FIVE RAVENS PERCHED BLACKLY above Al Gore's chamber door last night, croaking, "Nevermore," and crapping all over his last chance to seal his narrow popular-vote victory with an electoral comeback in the Bingo State.

  Anyone who thinks the unsigned 5-4 "decision" by the U.S. Supreme Court had its roots in the rule of law, rather than in the cesspool of political expediency and personal gain, is nearly as dim a bulb as the next Leader of the Free World, George W. Bush.

  Rarely has there been a more conclusive demonstration of the axiom, "It's not what you know, but who you know." According to The New York Times, Justice Clarence Thomas's wife works for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group, gathering resumes from would-be appointees in a presumptive Bush White House. Justice Antonin Scalia's son, meanwhile, works for a law firm employed by the Republican candidate.

  Thomas was appointed to the court by Bush's daddy. Scalia is a relic of the Reagan era. Neither recused himself from this momentous decision, despite their obvious conflicts of interest, and both sided with this slimmest of majorities, divided strictly along party lines.

  It was not a pretty picture for a lesser jurist, Judge Gilbert S. Merritt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Admittedly partial to Gore, Merritt told the Times that Thomas should remove himself from the case, citing Section 455 of Title 28 of the United States Code, "Disqualification of Justices, Judges or Magistrates," which requires court officers to excuse themselves if a spouse has "an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding."

  But it appears that the rule of law takes a back seat to the rule of privilege.

  If You Can't Beat 'Em, Cheat 'Em. The GOP stole Florida once before, back in 1876, with the help of an allegedly bipartisan commission of congressmen and Supreme Court judges that split along party lines in favor of Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes, according to NPR commentator Kevin Phillips. It must have been even easier this time, what with another, smarter Bush squatting in the Florida governor's mansion, a secretary of state who moonlighted as Dubya's state-campaign co-chaircreature deciding what constituted a legal vote, and a GOP legislature eager to skirt the entire messy issue by naming its own slate of electors committed to the Twit from Texas.

  But the truth is, it's easy to steal when no one is minding the store. Half the electorate couldn't be bothered to vote; they were either back in the office, gleefully tallying the receipts from a booming economy, or sullenly sweeping up at minimum wage. Such halfwitted shopkeepers embolden thieves.

  My college pals and I used to have shoplifting contests around simpletons like this back in 1971. Clad in military-surplus overcoats concealing knapsacks worn in reverse like faux beer bellies, we looted LPs from inattentive record-store clerks, beer from convenience stores and steaks from the grocery. My personal best was $27 worth of meat, no small feat at 1971 prices.

  Even if we got busted, we knew we'd get off, because we were privileged whiteboys, college kids with fine, upright parents. But we never got caught, in no small measure because the people we stole from didn't have the sense that they were losing anything. It was somebody else's store; they just worked there.

  Attention, W-Mart Shoppers: Today's Red-Light Special Is... Well, Dubya is chief clerk in the American store now, and more than a few of us are likely to be laid off in the next four years with this smirking dimwit manning the counter while corporate criminals deep-discount the national inventory out the back door.

  Gore will be the first of us to get that pink slip despite winning the popular vote, just like Samuel J. Tilden did back in 1876. Joe Lieberman can go back to his old gig in the Senate, but Big Al will be headed home to Tennessee, a state that, had he carried its three electoral votes, would have spared us from five weeks of politicians, lawyers and judges bleating about "the will of the people" while frantically peddling their bloated asses to the highest bidder, like streetwalkers waxing rhapsodic about romantic love.

  Happily, Bush will not be far behind him. Like Hayes, he is certain to be greeted as "Your Fraudulency" during the single term he will serve as president before being flogged out of office by a vengeful nation in the grip of a Hooveresque depression, an oil war in the Middle East, or both.

  As for the Supremes, Justice John Paul Stevens has already written their most critical review. Noting that the high court's action "can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land," Stevens concluded: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."

  This column is exclusive to the DogPage. No idea where the Bush MasterRace ad came from ... it just showed up one day in an e-mail from James Carville.

• All boogered up in Florida: It's snot funny.
  
  
• The election and the Book of Revelation.
  
  
• A pointlessly obscene screed about the Floridicks.
  
  
• Tool or fool? Our non-choice in Election 2000.
  
  
• Motel Hell: Welcome to Motel 666.
  
  
• And now for something completely different: People who look like their dogs.