As with many "settlements" that take place when the Shakedown Squads attack--usually the victim is some corporation--it's considered easier to pay someone off than to go through the wringer of a trial with its associated PR attacks. Often, I think this is a mistake, and however hard it is, they should go through the process rather than caving in.

If you think having more felons, illiterates, illegal immigrants, and people mentally incapable of handling a punch card in the voting booths would get us better leadership--the whole racism thing is an irrelevant smokescreen--then by all means go for it. Certainly it would give the Democratic Party an advantage in future elections, which is after all the point, isn't it?

And for those of you still crying into your pillows at night about Gore, get over it already. Had Bush won the popular vote, and Gore gotten those 600 votes in Florida, you'd be trumpeting Gore's glorious mandate of the people and the triumph of the Constitutional process and the Electoral college. Nobody likes a whiner.