Sore Loserman (Tea Party Edition)

I guess Santa didn’t bring them what they wanted, and they’re crying their little eyes out.

Which seems odd, given their recent successes.

OK. First on the whiny list? Tea Party Express favorite Joe Miller of Alaska …

Miller ran, of course, on good populist anger: We the People! and Don’t Tread on Me! and Let’s take our country back!

So, when Lisa Murkowski runs THE ultimate populist political campaign — the almost-never-successful write-in campaign, the longest shot in the political sweepstakes — WHO is the first person trying to disqualify (disenfranchise) as many voters as possible, because they do not belong to the “Spelling Elite”?

Seriously? Spelling flames are going to win you the senatorial seat?

Hypocrisy, thy name be GOP.

Joe Miller of Alaska. The man without regular access to a razor. Or, too conflicted to be clean-shaven or carry a full beard, he wears that oh-so-difficult and vainglorious testament to pseudo-virility, the “stubble” cut.

That’s not “manly,” or “free-thinking.” Mostly, it’s gay.

Not that there’s anything wrong with gay, but it’s clearly more “Village People” than “Axemen.” Axemen don’t have to spend the hours in the mirror that maintaining the fake stubble look takes. Kind of like that recent fad of the “I don’t own a comb and slept in it look” takes a LOT longer to maintain in its slovenly casualness than it would take to actually carry a comb and get a haircut every few weeks instead of every few days.

Which is an apt metaphor for the whole phony BS behind Joe Miller’s campaign — which turned immediately around from “anti-party” to “anti-spelling-mistakes” the second that there was something to be had.

Look: the vote IS the franchise. It IS the bedrock of the democratic process and if it is not honored, then … well, you get what we used to call “Cuban Elections” before November of, say, 2000.

I was gratified to see that newly retired Justice John Paul Stevens brought up that point on 60 Minutes.

When asked what the court should have done with Bush v. Gore, Stevens told Pelley, “It should’ve denied the stay, period.”

“And therefore let the recount go on in Florida?” Pelley asked.

“That’s right,” Stevens said.

Bush versus Gore: a month after Election Day, Florida was recounting ballots; Bush was ahead, but the recount might go either way.

So the Bush campaign asked the court for a stay, to stop the recount, on the grounds that the recount would cause irreparable harm to the nation. The night before the court heard the request, Stevens ran into another justice at a party.

“And I remember both of us saying to one another, ‘Well, I guess we’re gonna have to meet tomorrow on this, but that’ll take us about ten minutes,’ because it had obviously no merit to it. Because in order to get a stay in any situation, the applicant has to prove irreparable injury and there just obviously wasn’t any irreparable injury to allowing a recount to go through because the worst that happens is you get a more accurate count of the votes. But much to our surprise, on the next day, the majority did decide to grant a stay,” Stevens remembered…

And here we are again.

But the Alaska Supreme Court were not staffed with drunken ideologues, evidently. According to the Anchorage Daily News:

Court rejects Miller, lifts certification hold

SENATE RACE: Murkowski will be certified as the winner Thursday.
By LISA DEMER
Published: December 28th, 2010 11:15 PM
Last Modified: December 28th, 2010 11:31 PM

A judge on Tuesday dismissed Republican Joe Miller’s federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of the Nov. 2 election, clearing the way for U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski to be sworn in for another term.

U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline issued a 14-page order in which he said Miller wasn’t raising any federal issues that he needed to resolve.

The judge ruled without waiting for the state to provide its defense of the election. He said state lawyers didn’t even need to respond to Miller’s latest filings. He ordered Miller’s entire federal case dismissed.

Within hours, Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell announced that the state had certified Murkowski as the winner of the hotly contested race for U.S. Senate.

Read more:

You got that, right? After doing everything he could in his Speak N Spell attack on the voters who wrote in Lisa Murkowski’s name in that Alaska race, “Miller wasn’t raising any federal issues that he needed to resolve,” said the Federal Judge.

In other words, the case was so flimsy as presented, that it was rejected prima fascie by the judge: “on the face of it” without any need for a response from the party Miller was suing.

What a bold individualist you are, Joe Miller. What a champion of the people you are, Joe Miller. What a reminder you are of another “Miller,” Joe Miller:

Democrat Zell Miller of Georgia speaking on behalf of
George W. Bush at the 2004 Republican Convention

Zell.

But don’t go away mad, Joe Miller. Don Pardo, tell him what fine parting gifts he’s won.

You’ve won the indisputed title for the election, Joe Miller: You are our “Sore Loserman” of the year for 2010.

Congratulations.

Courage.