The James Baker character reminded Republican stalwarts that no matter how the votes were counted Bush still won. A complete lie.
As the recount by the consortium of newspapers showed, when all the votes were counted, Gore won.
From "On the Media," circa 2001
MIKE PESCA: ... I mentioned before that TV didn't really get to cover the story, but Good Morning America did get to it before the plane crashed, and the way they covered it was kind of indicative of what you saw. I can't believe that they would phrase it this way, but what they said: Finally a comprehensive media review of last year's presidential election in Florida indicates that under all recount scenarios but one, the results probably would not have changed. Talking about all the scenarios but one --
the one scenario where (Gore) would have won is if you counted all the ballots! That's why all these papers got together! That's why they spent the million bucks! They didn't spend the million bucks to see well who would have won if they counted only hanging chads. They didn't spend a million bucks to find out who would have won if they counted partial chads.
They wanted to know who got the most votes, and here you have a situation where they actually found out that answer -- and no one knows about it. And, you know, maybe, maybe history will sort it out, but right now I don't think the public knows.
On the Media