To some it may seem like it was even longer ago:
Ten years ago today, five Supreme Court justices issued a "stay" to halt Florida's recounting of votes in the presidential contest between then-Vice President Al Gore (the Democrat) and Texas Gov. George Bush (the Republican).
Three days later, on Dec. 12, the same five justices "stopped the recount once and for all," as The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin reminds us. Bush, with Florida's Electoral College votes now in hand because he had been ahead in the state's count, would become the next president.
The five who came down on that side: Chief Justice William Rehnquist and justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Scalia has become known for telling those who object to what the court did to "get over it." Toobin argues in The New Yorker's latest issue that the decision "didn't just scar the court's record, it damaged the court's honor."
Cornell University's Law School has the Dec. 12, 2000, Supreme Court writ posted here.
Ten years later, we wonder what everyone thinks:
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