>>How is this article and its defense of >>Federalism not a perfect reason why the US >>Supreme Court should _not_ have stepped in and >>decided to end the Fla recounts?

If you ignore that the FLA Supreme Court bend a rule that was bent back by the US Supreme. As far as I understand it, a candidate can't keep changing the goalposts if he thinks he'll loose.

You also need to ignore how Al Gore broke the local parliamentary procedure and was stupid enough to try and cherry-pick the counties he thought would push him over the line. (I heard Katherine Harris say that if he'd of waited for the wheels to turn, a statewide recount could have occured...thus ensuring a Gore win)

Errrm, there were about half a dozen other states that the Repubs could have bought into play and potentially trounced Al Gore. In 'Al's World' maybe it could take 6 months to count election results till a winner is found but like all the other states, there are finite rules that need to be followed. I know that GW was far from innocent, but while he was sending lawyers in - Gore was sending his Ayotollah's to throw out legitimate votes that hadn't fallen for him.