Bombshell -- just 11 years too late. . .

Retired U. S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has just given us a behind-the-scenes glimpse at what went on in the court that threw the 2000 election to George Bush.

From the Huffington Post article:

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens writes in his new memoir, Five Chiefs, that the George W. Bush campaign's 2000 appeal to the United States Supreme Court over the Florida recount was "frivolous" and never should have been granted.

He recalls bumping into Justice Stephen Breyer at a Christmas party and the two having a brief conversation about the Bush application to halt the recount by issuing a stay. "We agreed that the application was frivolous," he writes. "To secure a stay, a litigant must show that one is necessary to prevent a legally cognizable irreparable injury. Bush's attorneys had failed to make any such showing."

By a five-to-four vote, the court granted the stay. "What I still regard as a frivolous stay application kept the court extremely busy for four days," he writes. He adds that no justice has ever cited the opinions that provided the basis for their ruling.

This does not make me feel one whit better about the Bush presidency. It just twists the knife of frustrated outrage that we -- and the world -- had to endure the consequences of such a momentous decision made by such a slim majority and in the absence of any legal justification or explanation.

Am I wrong in my memory that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor later said she regretted her vote with the majority on this? Or was that some other decision I'm thinking wistfully about?

Ralph