The extraordinary presidential election ended not with a bang but with a legal whimper from the U.S. Supreme Court. The 5-4 decision in Al Gore v. George Bush was a mishmash, provoking four separate dissents and leaving legal scholars with many loose ends and citizens with lots of questions.
When Vice President Al Gore picked Joseph Lieberman as his running mate, it was the first-ever selection for a national ticket of a Jewish nominee—and a practicing Orthodox Jew at that. Though in decades past the decision might have been viewed as highly risky, choosing Lieberman was seen quickly as a “plus” for the Democrats. On the campaign trail, the sabbath-observing Lieberman spoke freely of Judaism’s influence in his life, drawing some cautionary words from the Anti-Defamation League and others concerned with the separation of religion and government.
Sunday morning comic sections occasionally include one of those confusing hidden pictures which can abruptly assume a different shape depending on how you focus on the images. Some people insist there is no three-dimensional shape in those colorful blocks of color; other smugly know that there is. Those shapes are like a poem, which calls on the reader to grasp the meaning in the design. Which brings us to the question of what we can discern from the long drawn-out process that has given us a new president, more than a month late.