Maybe it was all a dream?

On the weekend before the eve of the referendum on the wild crazy ride that has been the Bush presidency, I find myself returning more frequently to the travesty of the 2000 election. I wonder if this will become a problem for historians in the future: why the protest was so muted, the outrage so quick to heal. Were Americans too full and lazy with their millenial consumer capitalism to really spend that much energy on politics? Does the election present some clues to the flaws inherent in the tension between democracy and a state built on the prerogatives of constitutional rule of law? Publius at Legal Fiction has the gory details, in case you've forgotten.