Stupid White Men-- and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore [7]
On November 7, 2000, as black Floridians flocked to the polls in record numbers, many were met at the ballot boxes with a blunt rebuke: “You cannot vote.” In a number of precincts in Florida’s inner cities, the polling locations were heavily fortified with police to block anyone on Katherine and Jeb’s “felons list” from voting. Hundreds of law-abiding citizens looking to exercise their constitutional right to vote, mostly in black and Hispanic communities, were sent away—and threatened with arrest if they protested.
George W. Bush would officially be credited with receiving 537 more votes than Al Gore in Florida. Is it safe to assume that the thousands of registered black and Hispanic voters barred from the polls might have made the difference if they had been allowed to vote—and cost Bush the election? Without a doubt.
On election night, after the polls closed, there was much confusion over what was happening with the counting of the votes in Florida. Finally a decision was made by the man in charge of the election night desk for the Fox News Channel. He decided that Fox should go on the air and declare that Bush had won Florida and thus the election. And that’s what happened. Fox formally declared Bush the winner.
But down in Tallahassee, the counting of the votes had not yet been completed; in fact, the Associated Press insisted it was still too close to call, and refused to follow Fox’s lead.
Not so the other networks. They ran like lemmings after Fox made the call, afraid that they would be seen as slow or out of the loop—even though their own news reporters on the ground were insisting that it was too early to call the election. But who needs reporters when you’re playing follow the leader—the leader, in this case, being John Ellis, the man in charge of Fox’s election coverage. Who is John Ellis?
He’s a first cousin of George W. and Jeb Bush.
Once Ellis made the call and everyone followed suit, there was no going back—and nothing was more psychologically devastating for Gore’s chances of winning than the sudden perception that HE was being the spoiler by asking for recounts, withdrawing his concession of defeat, tying up the courts with lawyers and lawsuits. The truth is that during all of this, Gore actually was ahead—he had the most votes—but that was never how the news media played it.
The one moment from that election night I will never forget came earlier in the evening, after the networks had first correctly-projected the state of Florida for Gore. The cameras cut to a hotel room in Texas. There sat George W with his father, the former President, and his mother, Barbara. The old man appeared cool as a cucumber, even though it looked like curtains for Sonny. A reporter asked young Bush what he thought about the outcome.
“I’m not ... conceding anything in Florida,” Junior piped up, semicoherently. “I know you’ve all the projections, but people are actually counting the votes.... The networks called this thing awfully earlier and people are actually counting the votes have different perspective so...” It was an odd moment in that crazy night of election result coverage. The Bushes, with their relaxed smiles, looked like a family of cats that had just wolfed down a bunch of canaries—as if they knew something we didn’t.
They did. They knew Jeb and Katherine had done their job months earlier. They knew cousin John was holding down the fort at Fox election central. And if all else failed, there was always that team Poppy could count on: the United States Supreme Court.
As we all know, that’s exactly what happened for the next thirty-six days. The forces