Gore's in the right [PHILA. INQUIRER]
As uncertainty lingers, Republicans desperately try to call the
game early.
What if the roles were reversed?
What if it were Al Gore who narrowly led in the early election tallies in a state
where his brother was governor?
What if it were heavily Republican counties that were trying to get the most
accurate count possible, while a state official who doubled as co-chair of the Gore
campaign maneuvered ceaselessly to thwart the effort?
What if Mr. Gore's minions were styling him as the rightful president-elect and
decrying George W. Bush's use of normal legal avenues as "stealing the election"?
What if their claim to have won the election rested mainly on premature victory
calls by television networks, a cascade that began when a network whose news
team was led by Mr. Gore's first cousin called it for his relative?
Do you think the pro-Bush partisans now choking media e-mail systems with their
demands for Mr. Gore to concede would be calling on Gov. Bush to do the
same? Hardly.
More likely, they'd be howling at the moon in the hyperventilating,
conspiracy-laced rhetoric that conservative operatives perfected during their
seven-year quest to delegitimize Bill Clinton.
Though Gore's Florida team got off to a snarly, off-key start, their tone recently
has been more moderate, keyed by the reasonable peace deal that Mr. Gore
offered at midweek, but George W. Bush rejected.
The topsy-turvy legal events of Friday ensure that the noisy uncertainty will linger
into Thanksgiving week.
The Florida Supreme Court rightly told state Secretary of State (and Bush
campaign cochair) Katherine Harris not to certify final election results, as she'd
promised to do Saturday, until it decides a dispute over requested manual
recounts in three Florida counties. The implacable Ms. Harris has refused to
accept those recounts, even though a sound case can be made that they would
most accurately reflect the Election Day will of voters in those counties.
Everyone with their wits about them has known that this drama would, in the end,
turn upon how Florida's highest court decides to apply the state's election laws to
this unique situation.
Now, we're there.
If the court agrees with Ms. Harris, that likely will be that. "Ruffles and Flourishes"
for Mr. Bush.
If the court disagrees, then nothing is certain until the recounts in Broward, West
Palm Beach and perhaps Miami-Dade Counties are complete.
With each long day of lawyerly spin, pundit gab and "hanging chad" jokes, more
Americans conclude that they've had enough; they just "want it over with." That's
understandable, but it's a reflection mostly of the psychic burdens of media
overload in a wired world.
This attitude succumbs to a false sense of crisis fomented by the Bush camp.
Neither the work of the Electoral College nor the needs of an orderly transition of
presidential power will be compromised by another week's delay in deciding the
victor. And it fails to take into account the usual pace of election recounts, which
often take this long in races of lesser scope and moment.
For example, closer to home, the 12th Congressional District race in New Jersey
between Dick Zimmer and incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. Rush Holt is in a
recount. Mr. Holt is leading, but his Republican opponent is filing lawsuits and
trumpeting alleged irregularities. Should Mr. Zimmer concede?
The Republicans are like a team leading after the seventh inning but agitating to
have the game called. Just because they have one of the umpires in their pocket
does not make them right.
Their spin is often counter to the facts. Bush backers insinuate some kind of dark
plot in the fact that all three counties now pursuing recounts are Democratic. The
Bush camp could have similarly sought recounts in counties of its choosing. It
didn't, missing deadlines now passed. If Mr. Bush thought those recounts would
help him, would he not have sought them?
His camp pushes hard the canard that manual recounts, which objective experts
say Florida law prefers as the arbiter of last resort, are unreliable.
This weekend, thanks to the Florida high court, the Palm Beach and Broward
County recounts will plunge ahead in a legal Twilight Zone. That's preferable to
Ms. Harris' foiled plan for another premature Bush victory declaration. |
