11/21/00 6:15 p.m.
Florida Through the Looking Glass
Gore, not Bush, is at fault.

By Ramesh Ponnuru, NR senior editor

or the establishment press, invested as it is in the myth of its own nonpartisanship, the default position in any partisan battle is moral equivalence. Both sides are being hypocritical, irresponsible, etc. Of course there will usually be evidence to support that thesis. But even when there is folly and misconduct on both sides, it's often possible to make distinctions.

That's exactly what two widely read columnists attempt to do today: E. J. Dionne Jr. in the Washington Post and Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times. They argue, in Friedman's words, that "there's actually a big difference between how Al Gore and George W. Bush have been behaving." True enough. But the conclusion both men reach — that Gore has been behaving more responsibly than Bush — is the reverse of the truth.

Their basic argument is that Bush partisans are being reckless in charging that Gore is trying to steal the election, with Dionne adding that Bush would find it difficult to govern if he disputes Gore's methods so vigorously that he alienates Democrats.

Friedman's question for Bush is whether there is "any condition under which [he] would now accept Al Gore as the legitimate winner." He writes that "Bush has left himself no room to be a gracious loser" — the New York Times's favorite role for a Republican. But the Bush campaign said that if Gore had won the first count, or the recount, or the recount plus absentee ballots, it would have been prepared to leave the field. Friedman may think that's not the ideal way to settle the election, but that's not the point. Any time the Gore campaign is pressed about under what conditions it would fold, its spokesmen, including Joe Lieberman, say ominously that all options are on the table.

Friedman says, as well, that "the Bush team is making wild, unsubstantiated allegations that the hand counters are engaged in fraud." No, it isn't — although it is making the point that the hand-count process is susceptible to fraud, especially given the absence of uniform standards such as those that govern hand recounts in Texas. Friedman says that Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes was "out of line… to imply that our armed forces are pro-Republican and that the Democrats were trying to prevent them from voting." Never mind that both halves of that assertion are true. He continues, "Ms. Hughes might as well have called Mr. Gore a traitor. It would be like Mr. Gore accusing Mr. Bush of bigoted motives because he resisted recounts in counties with heavy black and Jewish populations. You just don't talk that way about the man who might be our next president." No: You send Jesse Jackson to do the talking for you. Or has Friedman missed the implications of the Rev. Jackson's Selma talk?

Dionne writes, "Inside the counting rooms, [Bush's] supporters challenge every ballot that might have been cast for Al Gore." This line, in a column about partisan hyperbole, is itself a lapse into partisan hyperbole — a rare one for Dionne. The Bush campaign isn't challenging "every" Gore ballot or even most Gore ballots. According to Dionne, the Bush team makes matters worse by pretending, when outside the counting rooms, that they have no say inside them. Well, they don't have much of one. Boards of canvassers make the call on disputed ballots, and they're mostly Democrats where it matters. Would Dionne prefer for the Republicans to follow the advice John Miller and I gave, and boycott the process entirely?

There's a through-the-looking-glass quality to both columns. Dionne writes that the "Bush apparat" is making "vicious attacks on Gore and Democratic officials in Florida." I haven't heard any scurrilous rumors about the personal lives of any of the Democratic players there; I have about some Republicans. Nor have the Republicans called Bob Butterworth, the state attorney general and the chairman of Gore's campaign in the state, anybody's "crony" or compare him to a "Soviet commisar," as Gore spokesman have described Republican secretary of state Katherine Harris. (Gore spokesman Mark Fabiani, by the way, said that Harris was "trying to steal this election away," with no rebuke from the schoolmarms of the press corps.)

Dionne writes that "Republicans are underestimating the effect of their inflammatory rhetoric and their willingness to push matters to the limit, and beyond." I heard a day after the election that Democratic strategist Bob Beckel was gathering information on electors with an eye toward swaying some Bush supporters; the Wall Street Journal has since reported to that effect. I've heard about nothing similar on the Republican side, and my Republican sources are (obviously) better than my Democratic ones.

It was Gore campaign chairman Bill Daley who said "the campaign continues" when the campaign should have gone, more or less, into slumber. It was Daley who said the "will of the people" required Gore's installation as president. It is Gore's lawyers who are asking Florida's supreme court to rewrite the law. It's local Democratic officials who are reversing their votes on holding hand recounts to help Gore, and it's statewide Democratic officials who are pressuring them to do so. It's Democrats who are voting midstream to change the standards for interpreting ballots to favor Gore. It's Warren Christopher who's lobbied boards of canvassers, and the Gore campaign that's sued boards run by Democrats to get their decisions overturned. It's Donna Brazile, Gore's campaign manager, who said without evidence that black voters had to go through dogs and guns to cast their ballots — and we all know who she's implying put those dogs and guns there.

Dionne is right to suggest that Republican charges that Gore is trying to steal the election are causing bitterness that will affect Bush's ability to govern. But the ultimate source of the bitterness is that Gore actually is trying to steal the election.