For the "You lost AL...get over it!" crowd, I give you two undeniable facts:

1) Bush-Cheney was the first to go to court, asking for an injunction to stop the recount, and
2) The recount was never completed, as the US Supreme Court stopped it.

Therefore, how can you say Gore "lost" - the only thing he really lost was the case before the Supreme Court, as the legal recount (states' rights!) was never completed. So Bush really was essentially court-appointed.

You can't deny that even with everything used against him, Kerry came within around 100K votes in Ohio from winning in 2004. Is there any doubt Gore would have easily defeated Bush, with the Clinton-Gore record and the fact that he wasn't involved in the Iraq debacle at all?

The SC cited the fact that since Bush was going to be president, Gore winning after a recount would cast doubt on Bush's legitimacy. I say "fact" because it's hard to deny that losing the election would probably be bad for someone who was elected...except how can you be elected until the vote is counted?

And telling is the fact that the SC explicitly stated that their decision could not be used as precedent in the future, thereby putting Scalia's man in the White House without risking that it might be used against him in the future.