Jayzus effin’ whatever, lady. I guess we should be glad she at least sees the error of her ways but for crying out loud, this makes me want to fucking throw something:

Now she tells us. More than 12 years after the fact, retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said it was probably a mistake for the Supreme Court to hear Bush v. Gore and anoint George W. Bush as president of the United States.

“It took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue,” Justice O’Connor told the Chicago Tribune editorial board on Friday. “Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.'”

She continued: “Obviously the court did reach a decision and thought it had to reach a decision. It turned out the election authorities in Florida hadn’t done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day.”

The result, she allowed, “stirred up the public” and “gave the court a less than perfect reputation.”

There are no words. None. That decision opened the floodgates on a tsunami of damage which denigrated not just our nation, not just the world, but human decency. As the Times notes, the fact that O’Connor can say those words as if she were a disinterested party, not a key player, shows a level of disassociation that is shocking.

Like a lot of liberals I’ve indulged in my share of “if only” fantasies. If only Al Gore had been president, the Iraq War would not have happened. Of this, I’m sure. Without that, we would not have had Abu Ghraib and torture, and the river of money flooding out of the Treasury to the grifters and pirates who fed at the war trough. We’d probably have cap-and-trade legislation and the Social Security surplus wouldn’t have been raided. Indeed, we might have had Gore’s “lock box,” and we sure as hell wouldn’t have had tax cuts for the rich.

But who the hell knows. If SCOTUS hadn’t taken Bush v Gore, Bush might have been president anyway. Who really knows what would have happened? It’s useless to indulge in these exercises, I know this. If the Bush presidency hadn’t been such a colossal fuck-up, would the Democrats have won so big in 2006? Would we have a President Obama now? Who knows. Things happen because they do, you can’t change the past, you just have to adjust to what comes your way and respond accordingly.

But damn I’m getting sick of this “wish I hadn’t done that” shit.

[UPDATE]:

Let me add this comment, which I posted over at my place, to clarify why this stuff makes me so angry: It’s not just that she changed her mind. It’s that we liberals were beaten over the head by conservatives to GET OVER IT and SHUT UP and SURRENDER GORE-OTHY and OH THAT AGAIN and on and on, for fucking years. And I feel like the left was vindicated long, long ago. Everyone pretty much agrees that the Bush Presidency was the worst of times. So no, I don’t want to hear “maybe we ought’n’t to have done that” now.

I want my fucking apology. If you can’t say, “I’m sorry, we fucked up” at this point, then keep your damn yap shut.

What’s that old country song? Oh yeah: