And It’s Not Just Frum…

You would like to think that the patently untrue assertion that Bush v. Gore was a 7-2 decision (the first one in history, apparently, with 4 dissenters who did not join any part of a majority or concurring opinion) would be limited to particularly dishonest conservative hacks trying to deny the self-evidently partisan nature of the decision. But the Con Law casebook I used to use made the same claim (although I haven’t checked the new edition yet.) Ugh. I mean, I can understand a reporter in the immediate aftermath of the decision making that mistake, but after you have time to look at it, it’s just a question of being able to count. (And as iocaste notes, it’s not even true in any informal sense; “there is an equal protection problem so…we’ll just shut it down and go with a count that by our own logic is just as flawed as the one we’re saying is unconstitutional” is an entirely different position from “there is an equal protection problem so let’s send it back to the Florida Courts so they can supervise a constitutional recount,” and it’s ridiculous to pretend otherwise.)

…UPDATE: I notice that the new edition of O’Brien does claim that the equal protection claim was “upheld by a vote of 7-2 [my emphasis].” So I will continue to boycott it when I teach the “organizing government” Con Law class…