According to some Democratic lawmakers, you aren't capable of voting this year without a United Nations monitor making sure you get it right. Eleven prominent Democrats, elected members of the House of Representatives, have sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, begging him to send UN monitors to oversee the 2004 election. Texas representative Eddie Bernice Johnson led the latest effort to subvert the sovereignty of the United States and place us under the control of the increasingly-corrupt United Nations. Besides Johnson, the letter was also signed by Julia Carson of Indiana, Jerrold Nadler, Edolphus Towns, Joseph Crowley and Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, Raul Grijalva of Arizona, Corrine Brown of Florida, Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, Danny K. Davis of Illinois and Michael M. Honda of California.

Let me get this straight. A group of Democrats want to bring some people from countries like North Korea, Iran, Syria, China and Cuba -- people that have never seen a democratic election in their lifetimes -- to sit in judgment on our elections? What kind of voodoo politics is that? The last time a foreign body had any direct influence over the political process of this country, the situation was corrected by a war for our freedom from British rule. Are these so-called Americans so willing to surrender that hard-won right of self-determination now, and to such a shamelessly scandal-ridden group of anti-American dictatorships and terrorist sympathisers? We may as well dissolve the Union now and save ourselves the pain of watching it done for us.

Generations of Americans have fought, and many have died, to preserve this independent nation as a single sovereign entity, free of outside control. Those men would be appalled who declared "for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." Where is the honor in those Democrats who can't admit that Al Gore lost the election fair and square according to the existing laws, four years after the fact?

That's what this election and this kind of partisanship is all about, in the end -- the bitter, unquenchable anger of Democrats who tried and failed to overthrow the election process when Al Gore lost the 2000 election. After calling President Bush to concede the election, Gore decided that he still wanted to win after all, and demanded a recount. As per Florida law, a machine recount was taken, and Gore still lost. Unfazed by and unwilling to accept his loss, unable to consider the good of the country more important than his own wounded pride and unfulfilled ambition, Gore sued the State of Florida to demand a manual recount. When the Florida Supreme Court allowed it... Gore still lost, even when the absentee votes of the military -- people whose votes deserve to be counted if anyone's are -- were throw out. After the recount was officially certified the second time and the deadline for recounts was reached, the Florida electors cast their votes. At that point, the election was over. In an act of almost unbelievable hubris, Gore demanded another manual recount, and the FSU allowed it again. Gore still lost. Never mind that the entire country was in an uproar over this subversion of the democratic process. Never mind that the pride and anger of Democrats was interrupting the smooth transfer of power as mandated by the Constitution. Finally, the Supreme Court decided that more recounts would be unproductive, and would be in violation of the Constitution. They decided that the three-times-verified election results would stand. Though the Democrats have resented that decision for nearly four years, it's important to remember that in the case of an unclear Presidential vote result (which this wasn't), Congress would have the right to decide. Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 of the Constitution states that "if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President." (The Twelfth Amendment shortened the list to the three highest.) George W. Bush would still have won in any case.

This latest attempt to brand the 2000 election as somehow "wrong" is an offshoot of Rep. Johnson's own unfounded attempt to claim that black voters were deliberately disenfranchised due to their color. According to the 17 August 2001 dissenting statement by members of the US Commission on Civil Rights, "Dr. John Lott, an economist at Yale Law School, was unable to find a consistent, statistical significant relationship between the share of voters who were African Americans and the ballot spoilage rate." In fact, the only people that weren't allowed to vote by Florida law were convicted felons. While there were problems with the 1998-mandated purge of convicted felons from the state's voting rolls, there was ample time for anyone who had been convicted, served their time and been released to ensure that their restored voting rights were properly recorded. As usual, personal responsibility is never an issue with Democrats. The problems with the voting rolls actually went both ways -- over 6,500 convicted felons who had no right to vote were allowed to do so anyway. The Democrats don't seem at all concerned with votes that were illegally cast for Gore, however. They also didn't seem concerned with the fact that the "mainstream" news outlets declared the Florida vote for Gore an hour early. 187,000 registered voters in Florida's heavily-Republican panhandle -- in the Central time zone -- did not vote. A poll conducted by McLaughlin & Associates indicated not only that two-thirds of them would have voted for George W. Bush, but that "the early and incorrect news network announcements declaring Al Gore the winner in Florida may have influenced thousands of last-minute voters." The Democrats are not concerned, as they pretend to be, for the rights of all voters... only those who might have voted for Gore. It's the ultimate in partisanship.

As Civil Rights Commissioners Abigail Thernstrom and Russell G. Redenbaugh stated in 2001, "[b]y basing its conclusion on allegations that seem driven by partisan interests and that lack factual basis, the majority on the Commission has needlessly fostered public distrust, alienation and manifest cynicism." Frankly, that sounds near-prophetic in retrospect. What have the Democrats done for the last four years except foster public distrust, alienation and manifest cynicism? It could almost be the party's motto.