Do the House Republicans have ears?

Yesterday, the Congress formally certified Bush as the winner of the Presidential election...but, not without a little bit of a fight. A small group of House Democrats sent out a letter to U.S. Senators outlining some of the problems that occured in Ohio and asking for support so that the issue could be formally discussed by both the House and the Senate. California Senator, Barbara Boxer, stepped up and objected to the certification. This led to two-hour "discussions" in both the House and the Senate yesterday. I tuned into C-span last night before I went to bed (as usual) and watched some of the House coverage. I was fucking horrified by some of the things I was hearing. The deal is, representatives request speaking time, 5 minute blocks at a time. I watched, probably, a half hour of this madness. One Democrat would step up and talk about the voting problems that occurred during this past election, then a Republican would pretty much rebuttle with statements that showed they were totally missing the point of why these objections were raised in the first place. This is from Reuters today:

California Sen. Barbara Boxer and Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, formally lodged objections because of Ohio, although they said they recognized Bush had won and were not trying to overturn the results.
They said their goal was to force lawmakers to heed problems that had been particularly evident in Democratic-leaning minority and urban neighborhoods and to consider the need for more voting reforms including standard election rules in all states.
"This objection does not have at its root the hope or even the hint of overturning or challenging the victory of the president," Tubbs Jones said. Boxer called it a matter of "electoral justice."

So, instead of discussing election reform and the problems that occurred (on both sides!), the Republicans spent the whole time (that I was watching at least) talking about how these discussions were a waste of the American peoples' time and that the Democrats should just move on and accept defeat. The thing is, the Democrats have accepted defeat, and they've made it clear as day (please see above statements by Tubbs Jones), yet, for some reason, these Republicans had a hard time processing this. So...after every Republican comment, the Democrats were forced to continually reinforce the purpose of these debates. Democrat after Democrat stepped up to the mic and began his/her comments with "Listen, what you have to understand is that this issue is not about red or blue, black or white or who won and who lost, it's about protecting the American peoples' right to vote." It was kind of maddening because these Democrats were out there just trying to be heard and no one on the other side was even listening.

I commend those Representatives who spoke out for the concerns of their constituents and I also commend Barbara Boxer for stepping up and giving those Reps the chance to have their concerns brought to light. I hope that, in the future, the Congress will team up and look further into election reform and work on making the American election process as flawless as possible.