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Unprecedented - 2000 Presidential Election

Unprecedented - 2000 Presidential Election

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Extremely Informative
Review: I saw this documentary in May and was totally surprised at the information they showed. I am a Floridian who thought I knew everything about what happened in this election, but I was totally mistaken! If I had understood all that had taken place behind the scenes, I would have been even more upset at what happened. Of course, NOW, with what Bush has and is doing, I'm already more upset than then. At the time, I thought Bush might be OK since he seemed to be a nice guy, even though I voted for Gore. Now I want to get the video to show to everyone in my neighborhood who would like to see it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent learning tool
Review: I teach introductory political science classes at Ohio University and this video is a wonderful movie to show kids when talking about campaigns and elections. The only other video that talks about the 2000 campaign is the CNN documentary, but Unprecedented is superior.

While this film does not cover every important detail, it gives you enough info to have a basic grasp of what happened. There are also several authors interviewed in the film that have written wonderful books about the election. Seeing them in the film should give people a good place to start if they want to find out more.

Lastly, after seeing what happened, and how the media ignored it, it really makes me worried about the election next month...

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Too one sided for my taste.
Review: In some ways this is a documentary everyone can love, whether you live in a Blue state or a Red state. For Lefties, this movie provides moral support for believing that Gore won Florida and the Presidency in 2000. For conservatives, it's a fun (but irrelevant) trip down memory lane, given that the two main villains both won reelection (Jeb Bush won Florida in 2002 by 13 percentage points and George Bush won Florida in 2004 by 5 points).

But in another sense, no one can love this documentary for the simple reason that it fails to be even remotely objective: no one in the Bush camp was interviewed, only one Florida county official was interviewed (for about 10 seconds), and no other Republican lawyer, political official or commentator was allowed to comment. This movie raised some interesting points, too bad we only hear one side.

But maybe it depends on how we're supposed to view it. Is it journalism or activism? If it were judged as an attempt at objective journalism, I doubt even Dan Rather would take it seriously. If it's supposed to be a partisan piece with a political agenda, then it only preaches to the choir - and preach it does! - but minus the charm found in Michael Moore films. Oh well, I'm hoping Bush's Brain is better.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Get Over It!
Review: It is repeated again and again that the Supreme Court "stole" the election from Gore. The fact is that Al Gore did not receieve as many votes in Florida as George W. Bush, period. Every re-count proved this, even when re-counts were limited to Democratic districs. The Supreme Court did not get involved until this re-counting became pointless, and we needed a President. The bigger mistake by the Supreme Court would have been to give Al Gore the election, when no one has ever stipulated that he received a greater vote than Bush in Florida. It is almost time for another election, so if you feel very strongly about Bush, GO VOTE!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Home of the brave, land of the free... yeah right!
Review: Obviously I'm not American, and after watching this dvd, I'm very VERY relieved. Your land is mean't to be the driving force of freedom and bravery, and instead is the laughing stock of the entire world, even your allies! Stop fooling yourself America! Your elections are jokes, your government is evil, your President is a puppet, your people are armed and you are all afraid all the time. What a way to be! You can't look at women's bossoms yet can buy a handgun!?! Huh? Take a good look around you. Your government attempts to 'buy friends' in other countries then turns on them like rabid dogs when they don't play ball. What a suprise. Wake up America. You are being taken down the garden path by the very hand of evil you trust. And stop with the guns! Haven't you learnt your lesson. Americans should NOT be armed... amendment or no amendment. Shoot first, ask questions later... now THAT'S the motto you should have. Forget the free and brave. That's just a joke! Oh, the dvd is excellent... and yes, you SHOULD be afraid... oh you know the rest!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Right vs. Left
Review: Perhaps "Viewer" from the midwest should be reminded that those on the "right" politically are conservative and those on the "left" are liberal. Therefore, it could be argued that there was a "left-wing" bias in the portrayal of this documentary.

By the way, this is an interesting video that raises many interesting points about the way the Republicans stole this election. This was an ugly period in partisan politics and exposed just how low conservatives will go to get their way. Of course, they learned from the dirty tricks master, Richard Nixon.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: haven't seen the movie, but had to say something
Review: regarding the posting "DEMS GET OVER IT".......

First, i have to ask what you mean by "all the recounts." So far as I understood it, there was only one recount, which was never completed because the Supreme Court stopped it. Like I said, I haven't seen the movie, so I could be wrong.

Second, where is this "liberal New Hampshire" you mention? I live in Massachusetts and, believe me, I know liberal when I see it, and New Hampshire is far from liberal. To prove my point, last year the Libertarian Party was kicking around the idea of getting a large number of Libertarians to move to one state so they could start a massive grassroots Libertarian movement and gain a foothold in national politics. The state they chose for its conservative leanings? New Hampshire! Now, I know the Libertarian Party is far removed from the GOP, mainly because Libertarians do care about people's rights, but they certainly are not liberal by any stretch of the imagination and neither is New Hampshire.

Anyway, the "election" in Florida was not an election, it was a prelude to a coronation. It doesn't matter, though. In 5 months we won't have to think about it anymore because Boy George will be gone.

since i had to give the DVD a rating and haven't seen it, i went with a middle-of-the-road 3

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: "A Viewer" (below) you HAVEN'T seen the film you're reviwing
Review: The point is that Harris et. al. did NOT follow Florida law, which had required that military absentee ballots (for example) be postmarked on or before the election day, and either from a foreign country or U.S. ship. Harris herself even wrote such in a memo, reminding her staff of that law. But when it became clear that this law would discount many military votes for Bush (which were late, not postmarked at all, multiple votes, or mysterious absentee votes from servicemen who hadn't requested them), Harris SCUTTLED her memo and accepted those votes CONTRARY to law.

Keep in mind that Harris was also the head of Bush's campaign in Florida all this time, and was pleased to see the matter referred to a Supreme Court stacked with friends of Dubya's daddy.

Then let's not forget the thousands of Black voters who were improperly stricken from voting records because "as wide a net as possible" was cast to exclude criminals. This resulted in people with similar names, birthdays, or random "positives" to be excluded, costing thousands of Black votes. Some Blacks were excluded because of felonies they were listed as having committed in the year 2007. On elocal judge and one election supervisor both found themselves on that list. In total, some estimates are that 90,000 people--mostly Democrats--improperly lost their right to vote. Oh, and let's not forget that lists of suggested names to be stricken were sent to Florida from the Texas Republican party...directly to Harris!

So I'm really disgusted at people who review media they have not seen or read (as happens all the time with political content); people write reviews simply to post political ideology, not to comment on actual subject matter in the media item.

So please be wary of one-star reviews that address little content, or suggests that the author (anonymously, of course!) hasn't even seen the film or book; such reviews are notably uniform: "Get over it!" and "More liberal complaining!", etc., with NO real substantive analysis of the material's content.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bias doesn't necessarily equal untrue
Review: This documentary did an exceptional job of investigating the Florida vote controversy.
To address other negative reviewers arguments:

The documentary didn't try to link the felon list to black disenfranchisement alone. They offered the statistic that the majority of ex-felons vote for Democrats while also noting that 90% of all blacks vote for Democrats. Additionally, 50% of ex-felons in Florida are black. Add it all up, and Katharine Harris's masterful list of names would inevitably affect many more Democratic voters than Republican ones. It's as simple as that. She knew what she was doing. Purging of voter rolls is not new, but a statewide 15% error rate is absurb and wrong.
It WAS a concerted effort to block Democratic voters.

One fact that wasn't mentioned in the documentary was that the election commissioner in one county had her name removed from the rolls because she was supposedly a felon!

Harris was the CO-CHAIR of BUSH'S CAMPAIGN and she got to use her "discretion" to decide which votes to count! That fact alone is so absolutely outrageous (but true, regardless of your bias).

There is no doubt that this isn't the first time an election was stolen, even at the presidential level. But it's still disconcerting to know that the man who lost the popular vote and, by voters' intent, lost the electoral college is president today.

Even if you forget all the disenfranchisement controversy and just consider the thousands of votes Pat Buchanan got in the heavily Jewish/Democratic area with the infamous butterfly ballot, Gore would have won. Many voters mistakenly voted for Buchanan -- evident in personal testimonies and apparent in the extremely high number of votes Buchanan got in these Jewish communities. Buchanan is known for essentially saying the Holocaust didn't happen or something anti-Semitic like that (regardless of the details, even Buchanan himself stated after the election that those votes clearly weren't meant for him).

Sure, you can say some things are "biased" in this, but Republicans are so guilty of trying to sway the public view with bias (like claiming that Democrats wanted to block the military overseas ballots, which is just not true -- they wanted to make sure that illegal overseas absentee ballots were not counted). Democrats could make the claim that Republicans wanted to block the black and Jewish vote, which they basically did, but not exactly so. It's more true than saying Democrats didn't want the military to vote, which is what James Baker stated in a press conference on Bush's behalf. Just a blatant lie.

Lately Republicans try to equate "liberal bias" with something being false, when in fact it's their own bias that leads them to believe the truth is biased against them! I used to vote for Republicans more often than not, but now I have trouble seeing beyond the party affiliation. I admit I am a Jim Jeffords independent, but I admire moderate/independent-thinking Republicans such as John McCain, George Voinovich, and Arlen Specter, to name a few.

Overall, the documentary is not necessarily exciting, but at times the evidence presented is infuriating and shocking, though all completely true. Definitely a must-see for anyone living and voting in America.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A biased unrelated chain of events
Review: This documentary should have been titled "Liberally Biased Cosnspiracy Theory Featuring A Completely Unrelated Chain of Events". The bulk of this documentary is a bunch of (excuse my crude wording) random crap that leads up to nothing. After you are finished watching this you will literally want to kick yourself.


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