HBO's Recount Demands a Sequel for 2004...and a Prayer for 2008

This weekend's fast-moving, long-overdue HBO docu-drama on the theft of the 2000 election stopped four years short. It did a riveting job of portraying how Team Bush, headed by James Baker, strong-armed its way into the presidency.

But it's now time for the major media to finally face up to Act 2 of the GOP's rape of the American electoral system, and produce a piece of equal heft and clout about Ohio 2004. And let's hope it won't be necessary to follow with a third piece on how the GOP could steal 2008.

The most telling moment in this generally credible HBO offering comes at the very end. Al Gore's Florida point man, Ron Klain (as played by Kevin Spacey), spots the victorious James Baker getting on his private plane. Ever the gentleman, Klain approaches Baker to congratulate him, and ask "if the best man won." Baker responds he thinks so.

The show then ends with simultaneous clips of George W. Bush and Al Gore. We can only shudder now with the knowledge of what Bush has done to our nation and the world. As the worst Chief Executive---we should not grace him with the title "President"---that the US has ever known, it is clear the stand-alone catastrophe of the stolen election of 2000 was just the beginning of a long national nightmare whose toll will stretch out for decades. The wreckage of our national self-respect, economy, military, ecology, educational system, moral standing in the world and so much more started with the US Supreme Court's ghastly decision to hand Bush a presidency he clearly did not win, in obvious violation of the law and tradition of US democracy.

In Recount, we see the rape of the American electoral system. In portraying the choreographed riots and intimidation used by GOP thugs to stop the recounting of ballots, the utterly partisan ditziness of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, the vile cynicism of the US Supreme Court in over-ruling the Florida Supreme Court and handing Bush the White House, HBO gratefully pulls few punches. There were other aspects of the rip-off it could have covered in greater depth, such as the rigging of electronic voting machines, and the role played by a Bush
cousin in getting Fox News and then the networks to shift their assessment of who had won Florida in the first place.

But the production does give fair treatment to the massive computerized disenfranchisement used by Governor Jeb Bush to prevent at least 50,000 citizens---most of them African-American---from exercising their right to vote. And it makes abundantly clear how absurd and insane was the final Supreme Court ruling that ended a recount that had every reason to be enshrined in our democracy as the only fair and reasonable way to resolve this disputed election.

Much of what really did happen in Florida 2000 has been previously deemed too hot for our bought, lame, supremely partisan corporate media to handle. That this HBO production had to wait nearly eight years and a lifetime of political catastrophe to air is a shame. Had it been shown around 2002, we might have been better prepared for what was to come in 2004.

Thankfully, there have been some excellent independent documentaries about Ohio 2004, most notably David Earnhardt's superb Uncounted and a long-awaited production from Emmy-award winner Dorothy Fadiman. But the major media has yet to deal in any meaningful way with the scores of different strategies employed by Karl Rove's GOP to steal four more years for the Bush machine of mass destruction. That movie should have come out in 2005.

In fact, it has now been evident for far too long that presidential elections can be stolen, that the consequences can be catastrophic, and that it could happen again this year. It is incumbent on us all to now work like hell to make sure that we keep history from repeating itself in November.

Perhaps in a few years we'll see an HBO docu-drama on how John Kerry wimped out and let Ken Blackwell and Karl Rove steal Ohio 2004. It would take a far longer show to cover all they did here in that tragic travesty of a non-election. But it would be great to see someday.

Meanwhile, let us fervently pray that by the time that one airs, we won't be asking for yet another expose about the theft of 2008. Because if such a "three-peat" hijacking actually does occur, it's hard to conceive of there being enough left of the America we once knew to get it made.

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HARVEY WASSERMAN'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES is at www.harveywasserman.com, as is SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH.

Comments

[likeicare]

The election of 2000 was just the culmination of Big Business's long-fought campaign to return the reins of government to itself -- where it believes power should lie.

FDR successfully took it away from them back in 1933, and they've been hot to get it back ever since then. It may have taken 70 years to do it -- completely -- but they did.

Now we have one of Dan Qualyes' old companies running Walter Reed, Blackwater substituting for our armed forces, Citibank in charge of our passports, Wackenhut guards at our nuclear power plants and national monuments, Big Pharma in charge of the FDA, and Wall Street brokers running the financial markets -- all unregulated.

Is this a great country or what?

[madridwontgodown]

Maybe before the 2004 elections we had an excuse. Now? Not so much.

[mgloraine]

It will take a lot more than praying to prevent a 2008 election theft. The Bush Gang has had eight years to federalize the cheating methodologies employed in Florida in 2000, using what used to be the Department of Justice to disenfranchise as many non-white, non-wealthy, and non-Republicans as possible, not to mention anyone who might be in the military and out of the country.

My prediction is that the attack on Iran will be carefully timed to distract voters as their names are purged from the voter rolls here at home. Couple that with the fact that the easily hackable voting machines produced by crony corporations will still be forced upon voters in critical precincts throughout the US, and we are clearly in danger of a third stolen election despite the complete absence of support for the Cheney-Bush regime and their lackey, McCain.

Democrats need to wage a counter-insurgency against the voter-caging of Mukasey's goon-squads, using tactics such as possibly a verification of the integrity of voter rolls within a week or two directly preceeding the General Election, the stationing of observers at polling places, and follow-through with subpoenas and legal actions against all members of the Cheney-Bush administration, and all BushCo appointees in the Department of Injustice. We need to keep the would-be cheaters busy defending themselves for the crimes they've already committed rather than giving them free rein to carry out the next attack on our democracy.

[Kundera]

So another words, every election Democrat Party wins, everything fair and square, but when Republicans win, there must be theft? Talk about the Party of children, of whining and crying. wow.

[CaliforniaDem]

No, if we learned anything from this Docudrama last night, it is that country over party should be the rule. I am a Democrat who can't even describe my angst over FL and MI. As a party, we have clearly learned nothing. Our DNC leaders have failed us.

[Thorn]

Know what? The NYT did a full recount. Bush did win. Sorry, but that's the real world.

[Citizen54]

Obviously a Bush supporter (and thank you for the mess we're in). And just how often do you let the NYT be the arbiter of truth?

Had you read further than an NYT synopsis, you would see that the results depended on which ballots were counted. There were thousands of ballots not counted, even in the recount. And then of course there were all the voters who were stricken from the polls for dubious if not illegal reasons and not given the chance to vote. Most analysts agree most of those voters would have gone for Gore.

Republican criminals stole the election, and got away with it, and went on to start an immoral war. And James Baker gets to have the final word in this remake of history. Wonderful.

[Thorn]

Your information is from an HBO movie. Kudos.

[poomplet]

THIS is where the debate lies....and really, where the Dem argument falls apart. Talk about fuzzy math/logic...the criteria for what ballots would be recounted & what threshold of damage/confusion would be the standard for inclusion/exclusion was positively absurd. It included shifting votes from bush to gore in places where the way the names were listed on the ballots might have been confusing to old people.

The NYT used realistic criteria that would have been acceptable to both parties, i.e., the hanging chads vs. those with a slight indentation.. They looked at it seven ways to sunday, and Bush won every time. This is before their liberal credentials took any hits...they would have LOVED to have been able to say it was rigged.

They couldn't ...end of story.

[LeeMay]

Excellent post. Even though I was aware of the individual issues surrounding the Florida election (i.e., voter disenfranchisement, the bringing in of Republican operatives to be disruptive, the blatant politicizing role of Katherine Harris, etc.) to see them all in context was really alarming. I hope the Obama camp had folks thoroughly reviewing this travesty of justice and has plans in place to prepare for a replay of this for this election.

[burnt]

"In fact, it has now been evident for far too long that presidential elections can be stolen, that the consequences can be catastrophic, and that it could happen again this year."

In five days we will be watching "Reword"... thanks to the Republican principles of the Clinton Party.

[jcorrington]

Good post, Harvey. My great fear is that this once great country has been trampled on so badly by corporate america, who will never give up this power, that no one can fix it now.




del8300
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[jackie4444]

Yes We Can. Speaking with one voice. Obama is an extraordinary person, but my guess is
that the "Obama phenomenon" is far less about Obama the person than it is about the fact
that he has struck a nerve with Americans across every party, racial and cultural line who believe that it is possible, and that it is imperative, to wrest control from special interests and return it to the people. Bullies throughout history have recognized that maintaining control has far less to do with real power than with the perception of the scope of that power by those over whom control is desired.

If we're honest, we must admit we have been lazy. How many millions knew Iraq was wrong before the first shot was fired? How many millions know that torture can never be justified in a civilized society? That any one of us who failed to account for billions of dollars in public funds given us, as Blackwater, would be sitting in jail - or that 'emergency' no-bid contracts which
continue after 5 years are no longer an 'emergency' ?

We've been silent too long on far too many things to don the cloak of victimhood. American MSM is deplorable for its complicity and its cowardice. We should openly disdain its excuses for
failure such as Brokaw's recent ridiculous justifications about 'what we knew then' to defend his networks complicity on Iraq. But we bear responsibility if we do not call it out.