The Supreme Court's decision let stand the electoral count as it had been ratified. This denied Gore the Presidency, because, according to the legally-certified electoral count, candidate Bush received more electoral votes, which, in our system, is how the President is chosen. Another way to say this is that the electors denied Gore the Presidency (by a tally of 271-266 as I recall). Or, that the voters (when their votes were counted and weighted appropriately, according to the rules set up by the Constitution) denied Gore the Presidency.
In a very similar way, Bob Dole was denied the Presidency in 1996 by the electors, George H.W. Bush was denied the Presidency in 1992 by the electors, Dukakis was denied the Presidency in 1988 by the electors, etc. Similarly, I was denied the Presidency in 2000 (by not even being a candidate), and so were you, and so was Tom Cruise, etc.
All quite plainly true.
The only thing which made 2000/Gore different from all these other cases is that at Gore's behest, the Florida Supreme Court ignored Florida's election laws for some reason, and tried to extend a legal vote-counting deadline to reverse Florida's legally-certified result. The U.S. Supreme Court put a stop to it, and thus, denied Gore an (illegitimate) Presidency.
As did a number of Freeper poll watchers, as I remember, who wouldn't let those Florida chad counters take a bunch of ballots into a private room for doctoring.
Although what you say is correct, the chosen phrase just sounds wrong.
The implication is that the Presidency would have been Gore's had the Republicans not taken the actions that they did (preventing the dems from stealing the election).
Thus the term represents the Dem POV that the election was theirs, inspite of the fact that at no time was Gore ever in the lead in Florida. It smacks of sour grapes and incessant whinning.
The accurate statement would have been "denied Gore the opportunity to keep recounting in various fashions until he finally came up with one which give him the Presidency."
SYLLABICATION: | de·ny |
PRONUNCIATION: | d-n |
TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: de·nied, de·ny·ing, de·nies 1. To declare untrue; contradict. 2. To refuse to believe; reject. 3. To refuse to recognize or acknowledge; disavow. 4a. To decline to grant or allow; refuse: deny the student's request; denied the prisoner food or water. b. To give a refusal to; turn down or away: The protesters were determined not to be denied. c. To restrain (oneself) especially from indulgence in pleasures. |
ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English denien, from Old French denier, from Latin dnegre : d-, de- + negre, to say no; see ne in Appendix I. |
SYNONYMS: | deny, contradict, contravene, disaffirm, gainsay, negate, traverse These verbs mean to refuse to admit the existence, truth, or value of: denied the rumor; contradicted the statement; contravene a conclusion; disaffirm a suggestion; trying to gainsay the evidence; negated the allegations; traverse an indictment. |
ANTONYM: | affirm |
-PJ
Words have meanings. Mitchell was incorrect. SCOTUS prevented the Florida Supreme Court from changing the rules of the election after it was over. Bush won every count including the one done after the election by the media consortium. Mitchell is perpetuating the myth that SCOTUS prevented Gore from winning the election using the oft repeated Dem contention that Gore had more votes than Bush. It simply isn't true. I am surprised that even some Freepers buy into this nonsense.