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The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President

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During the nation's plodding attempt to resolve the election, I paid attention day and night to the news. I downloaded and read many of the legal papers. Nothing fazed me, and I lost much sleep in my eagerness to hear and read more. But when the Supreme Court's opinion was released, I downloaded it, searched for the parts to which NBC news reporters had pointed as key, read them, and went into shock.

Realizing that, if the candidates had been reversed, the opinion would not have been the same, I attributed the contrived arguments to the ravages of unconscious bias. Unwittingly, I had assumed without evidence that, as justices of the Supreme Court, the Five would not abuse their positions knowingly to appoint a U.S. prime executive.

Then "The Nation" published Bugliosi's "None Dare Call It Treason" and distributed it over the Internet. I read this essay on-line and realized my error. Throwing off my unwarranted assumption that the bias had to have been unconscious, and retaining what else I already knew from my studies, I came to the same conclusion as Bugliosi: that the Five had committed a deliberate act of perfidy.

"None Dare Call It Treason" has been spreading among Americans for but a short while. Now in book form, as "The Betrayal of America", the essay's distribution will increase many times over, and perhaps many other readers will be able to cast aside the one assumption that blocks their most rational conclusion. This document will outlast the terms of the Five and become historic as one of the most useful things said publicly, at the time, about the Five's unfathomable imposition. This essay will not go away.

That's right, folks: Vincent Bugliosi is a Republican. Or was, last time I looked.

But he is one of the few Republicans in the nation with the guts to say, out loud, what we all know: The GOP, with the help of the GOP members of the Supreme Court, STOLE THE 2000 ELECTION.

In proof after proof after proof, Bugliosi takes a sledgehammer to the SCOTUS' ruling in Bush v. Gore, and also to the myth of the "unbiased, apolitical" Supreme Court. (In one of the book's more chilling passages, Bugliosi demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that William Rehnquist, out of sheer naked partisanship, committed perjury in order to get onto the SC, and again in order to become Chief "Justice". As Bugliosi says, Rehnquist should be making license plates, not running the nation's highest court.)

How long will the quisling Republicans be allowed to run roughshod?

Mr. Bugliosi has written a book that should be read by every American.

If you are of the opinion that the election of 2000 was a testament to the ultimate power of the individual voter, then you are misguided. This book outlines with irrefutable evidence that the Supreme Court silenced the American Voter when 5 justices handed down their decision and decided our future president. Mr. Bugliosi is never more accurate than when he states the election of George Bush was a "judicial coup d'etat," perpetrated by self-serving justices who held their own beliefs over the laws they were sworn to uphold.

It would also be easy to dismiss this book as having a liberal agenda. However, Mr. Bugliosi is a Conservative and shares this opinion with many other legal scholars who are Republicans as well as Conservatives. This book is about uncovering the truth as to what happened when the Court made their decision.

I cannot recommend this book enough. If you care about your country, then you need to understand the events of this period. Though we are powerless to change that miscarriage of justice, hopefully, because of books such as this, it will never be permitted to happen again.

In this book, America's finest prosecutor explains the legal reasons why the Supreme Court's December 12, 2000 decision is the worst crime ever perpetrated against our country. Americans watched aghast as the Supreme Court blatantly destroyed the very foundation of our democratic republic. Bugliosi dissects this decision, peeling it apart layer by layer as one would a rotten onion. He puts words and sound legal reasoning behind Americans' gut response of supreme betrayal on that day.

Over 700 law professors from across the country, including conservative supporters of Robert Bork, protested this decision in a petition published in the New York Times. This is not a partisan issue.

Bugliosi's article in "The Nation" was entitled "None Dare Call It Treason." Perhaps it is time we called it like it is.

Unfortunately too many people are going to see this book as a partisan thesis in support of Gore and against Bush. Although Mr. Bugliosi is clear and up front about the fact that he would prefer Gore to Bush, that is not what "The Betrayal" is about.

What Bugliosi does, simply, is put forth with irrefutable logic how the Supreme Court stole the election for their favored candidate. The evidience is clear from their own self contradictions, lack of support in law, and bizzare conduct, which mainstream media is far too timid and/or superficial to properly report.

Most of the content has shown up on The Nation's web page under the title "None Dare Call it Treason," and this edition fills out the basic text with footnotes. You can read that if buying this volume is too much of a burden.

My favorite line, which is in response to those very confused souls that thought the Florida Supreme Court was trying to steal the election and the noble U.S. Supreme Court merely stopped them, is as follows (paraphrased): You do not steal an election by wanting all the legal votes counted, which is what the Florida Supreme Court wanted. You steal an election by stopping the counting of all legal votes, which is exactly what the U.S. Supreme Court did.

Tough to get around that kind of logic, although many try.

What if? That is the question which haunts Democrats in America today. Yet, the traditional question of "What if" in Bugliosi's book is turned on its head. The author asks the question, "What if the shoe had been on the other foot?" What if it were Gore who had been awarded the presidency by a liberal Supreme Court? What if more voters had gone to the polls to elect Bush, yet Gore had been handed the election? What if, indeed! Bugliosi is a rare breed today. He is a lawyer/journalist who is willing to tell the truth about treason, and crime, and hypocracy with an unflinching ability to expose the truth. Sorry, I know it hurts, but Gore won. We now live under an appointed government.

If you want a feel for what Bugliosi has to say in this book I would suggest youtake the time to read the article (available on the web) for <Strong>The Nation</Strong> titles "None Dare Call It Treason".

Bugliosi lays out the law and the evidence that the US Supreme Court acted in a partisan political fashion in elevating George W. Bush to the position of Resident Select and, as of January 20th, Resident in Chief.

The book as well as the article in The Nation are fascinating reads that ought to give pause to all Americans no matter their political affiliation or who they voted for in November. The danger is that the court has become an instrument of politics and control rather than a dispassionate arbiter of law. Had the shoe been on the other foot there is little doubt that the conservatives would not be willing to "get over it".

It's a great book as is "The Hunting of the President" by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons (also available on Amazon) and anyone who decries Bugliosi's conclusions based on partisan politics instead of sound reasoning does themselves or their country no favors.

Gore won.

as others have noted, this book is really just a way to ensure that bugliosi's excellent essay in The Nation is preserved for a wider readership and, truly, for history. Years from now, students seeking to gain a sense of the outrage stirred by the court's "ruling" -- quotemarks because of the absolute legal bankruptcy of the decision -- will at least have this essay as a gifted distillation of the case AGAINST the court.

The original essay is the jewel of the book, though to fatten it up to booklength, a few bells and whistles were added. The forwards by molly ivins and gerry spence, while tasty, are snacks, and the extensive footnotes bugliosi added to the essay -- there were only 7 in the original article -- actually slow down the sheer urgent velocity of the indictment; they could have used a bit of judicious editing.

on the other hand, bugliosi has also added a concise and insightful summary of how the case got to the court -- vastly more relevant than 99 percent of the news accounts now in book form.

to those who would argue that -- in ruling on behalf of bush in a case it would have customarily denied a hearing to -- the court did nothing more than the florida supreme court did on behalf of al gore, bugliosi makes one ineradicable point.

set aside the fact that the fla. court grounded its decisions in established state law, while the supreme court did not find a single relevant federal precedent for its own actions; set aside also the fact that the fla. court's actions were well within the bounds of customary judicial review, while the supreme court's behavior and ruling were not only unprecedented, but it trashed every belief the court had previously claimed to hold paramount. the unavoidable, damning truth is, as bugliosi writes, the fla. court ruled in favor of counting every legal vote, while the supreme court of the united states ruled to suppress the counting of those votes.

may the felonious five -- as bugliosi calls rehnquist, thomas, kennedy, o'connor and their presumed leader, scalia -- know that infamy is theirs, forever.

Bugliosi is not a liberal, and not the poster boy of the ACLU. However, he has impartially looked at the legal maneuverings and consequences to explain what happened when the Supreme Court chose Bush as President. He clearly lays out the legal issues and how the Court betrayed their oath and duty to the Constitution. This book leaves no doubt that George W. Bush is not the legal President, but rather a usurper who took the office in a calculated coup. Anyone interested in restoring democracy to this country should call for the overthrow of Bush and the five members of the Supreme Court who violated US law.

You know, the negative reviews of this book to be found below are just typical of the semantic and rhetorical games that those on the so-called "right" like to play when they have no argument. If they can't find cogent, logical reasons to disagree with an idea that their lock-step, follow-the-fascist...excuse me, leader...mentality warns them they should oppose, then they just "stoop" to calling the originator of the idea a "liberal". Like being a "liberal" is a bad thing. Here's a little lesson in classical language for you so-called conservatives - "liber-" is the root for "free". Therefore, a "liberal" is a "free man". And since conservatives are the opposite of liberals, may I rhetorically ask what, then, are conservatives?

You see, the REAL reason that conservatives don't like this book is that one of their own on most matters, famed prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, a man who has never been bound by the slavish strictures of what passes for modern right-wing political philosophy, blows the whistle on them. Hard. They can't just write this guy off as some knee-jerk "liberal" creampuff, and if they do they do so at their peril. He joins William F. Buckley, Jr., just to name one who comes immediately to mind, as a rare conservative (sure, Bugliosi claims to be a moderate, but his previous public actions and writings tend to show a slight rightward slant) who is willing to admit that the Republican Party isn't _always_ right and who is willing to take a fresh look at issues without mindlessly parroting the party line. I think that perhaps the most telling point that Bugliosi makes in this book is that the actual outcome of the election was really not the issue, and was in fact irrelevant to his theme - that the Court majority in Bush v. Gore acted illegally, and that no matter what the result was, THEIR ILLEGAL ACTS CANNOT BE UNDONE. It's analogous to letting someone who fires a gun at you, intending to kill, off just because the bullet happened to miss you. Same general principle. But not one single Republican lackey who trashed this book would have the principles....no, the brains....no, the GUTS to admit that. Because that's one thing you'll never hear an modern American right-wing fanatic do...admit that he or she is wrong.

As far as the attacks by other reviewers on the legal grounds of Bugliosi's case go, I'd just like to say that I find it rather comical that a bunch of legal laypeople are actually expecting us to believe that they are more qualified experts in these matters than the most successful prosecutor (105-1 lifetime in murder cases in his career) in history. After you finish trashing Bugliosi for your party, I would also suggest that you go teach Emeril Lagasse the art of Cajun cooking, show Chuck Yeager how to fly a Piper Cub, and instruct Larry Bird on his free-throw shooting. Because those actions would make a hell of a lot more sense than attempting to instruct Vince Bugliosi on the finer points of Constitutional law.