Gary Kamiya: The ugliest election

[babylonsister]

The ugliest election

From the overly decorous Gore team to the bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court, HBO's enraging docudrama shows the Florida recount like it was.

By Gary Kamiya

May 23, 2008 | "Recount," director Jay Roach and screenwriter Danny Strong's first-rate docudrama about the disputed 2000 presidential election, is almost too painful to watch. Close to eight years have passed since a divided Supreme Court ended the epic 36-day battle over the votes by halting the recount in Florida, thus handing the election to George W. Bush. The bitterness over that judicial outrage may have subsided, but it never died, and HBO's "Recount" brings it all back. In fact, it's almost more unbearable to revisit this black chapter in American history than it was to experience it at the time. Beyond the manifest injustice of the ruling, after eight years of George W. Bush, we now know exactly what that ruling resulted in. It is impossible to watch "Recount" without experiencing a constant stream of agonized what-ifs.

Faced with this explosive subject, HBO could have played it safe and approved a mealy-mouthed "both sides made mistakes" film, the sort TV networks usually churn out on the rare occasions when they dare to tackle controversial current events. To its credit, it set the bar higher. "Recount" reveals what actually happened in Florida. And that's an audacious feat.

For those who may have repressed all memory of what happened in Florida, way back at the beginning of time before 9/11, Iraq and the Bush presidency, here's a quick primer. The election was a cliffhanger, the closest in modern American history. Gore won the popular vote by 540,520 votes, but the Electoral College tally -- the only one that matters -- came down to Florida. The networks called Florida for Gore. But then Bush took the lead, and first Fox, then the networks called it for Bush. Following the revised calls, Gore informally conceded to Bush and was about to formally concede when an aide intercepted him at the last minute. The aide told Gore that the numbers were closer than the networks were reporting -- so close that an automatic recount would be triggered. Gore withdrew his concession, and the 36-day battle began.

The Gore team, headed by William Daley (son of the Chicago mayor, who was long suspected of throwing the 1960 election for Kennedy), hired former Secretary of State Warren Christopher to head its political and legal campaign. Bush's lead after the automatic machine recount had dwindled to just 327 votes. The Gore team decided not to ask for a statewide manual recount, but to request one only in four heavily Democratic counties: Palm Beach, Volusia, Broward and Miami-Dade. It was to prove a fateful -- perhaps fatal -- decision.

Katherine Harris, the Florida secretary of state who was also a co-chair of Bush's campaign in the state, promptly ruled that the deadline to certify the vote was the next day, and that manual recounts would not be permitted. When three of the counties requested that their manual tallies be included, she ruled against them. But then the Florida Supreme Court, which was to become Gore's crucial ally in the GOP-dominated state, stepped in and ruled that manual recounts could proceed.

Bush's lawyers, who had been prepared for a legal defeat at the hands of the Florida court, appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the indefatigable Harris denied Palm Beach County's request for more time to finish its recount (had she granted it, Gore would have cut Bush's 337-vote lead by either 215 or 176 votes) and certified Bush the winner in Florida.

more...

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2008/05/23/recount/

[boobooday]

1. I have been tormented, I hate to do it

But I am tempted to sign up for HBO just long enough to see this.