Recent commentary from National Journal: Legal Affairs: The Supreme Court—and Others—Flub the Challenge, by Stuart Taylor Jr. (December 20, 2000) If this cloud has a silver lining, it is as a reminder that judges are just as fallible as politicians. Media: Image-Poor, by William Powers (December 20, 2000) The strongest political story of modern times was perhaps the weakest visual story of modern times. The Campaign: After All the Acrimony, the Election Ends on Grace Notes, by Carl M. Cannon (December 20, 2000) Gore conceded with grace and class, while Bush emphasized the need for bipartisanship. Social Studies: Nice Process In Florida—Too Bad About the Candidates, by Jonathan Rauch (December 13, 2000) The surprise has been how well most of the actors have behaved, and how many alarms have been false. Legal Affairs: No Exit—How the Supreme Court Boxed Gore In, by Stuart Taylor Jr. (December 13, 2000) The D.C. Nine have sent a subtle, but fairly unambiguous, signal that Al Gore's hopes are doomed. Media: Beyond Argument, by William Powers (December 13, 2000) Give them some credit. Cable TV news operations are getting a whole lot better. Political Pulse: Time Is Running Out for Gore, by William Schneider (December 13, 2000) While Gore is arguing the facts, Bush is arguing the law. But Bush has the clock on his side. The Campaign: A Fond Look at the Nagging Riddle of Al Gore, by Carl M. Cannon (December 13, 2000) The striking thing about Gore is that he has always been such an unnatural politician. More from National Journal. Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte.

Political Pulse: An Election—and Much More—Lost When the lawyerly fog cleared, Al Gore was a big loser. So was the Supreme Court by William Schneider December 20, 2000 The damage from the Florida fiasco is widespread and serious. Nobody comes out of this with an enhanced reputation. The U.S. electoral system is being held up to ridicule. A French television producer remarked: "We made fun of the Ivory Coast because they couldn't call the election in 24 hours. And here we have the country of the Internet, which doesn't know how to count the votes." Senators from both parties are already proposing plans to reform America's voting procedures. "It's inexcusable that the world's most advanced democracy relies on voting systems designed shortly after the Second World War," Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said as he introduced legislation. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., offered another plan, saying, "Our current system ... is almost uniform in its ineptitude." And it's not just the vote-counting procedures. For the first time in more than 100 years, the Electoral College is poised to produce a winner who lost the national popular vote. Oddly, if George W. Bush is, his second-place finish doesn't seem to be damaging his legitimacy. According to the Gallup Poll, nearly two-thirds of Americans know that Al Gore received more votes than Bush nationwide. Still, 85 percent of Americans say they would accept Bush as the legitimate President. That figure includes 82 percent of people who know that Gore won the national vote. The biggest shadow over a Bush presidency may not be the Electoral College anomaly, but the fact that the Supreme Court stopped the vote counting in Florida. Gore had only one strategic ally in this fight—the Florida Supreme Court. Bush was able to overwhelm that court with his own formidable array of forces: the Florida governor and secretary of state, the Florida Legislature, congressional allies, and the U.S. Supreme Court. To the country and to the world, it looked like an act of brute partisan muscle. Stopping the recount sent an unfortunate message: "The fix is in." Gore's most important ally, the President of the United States, has been completely powerless. Bill Clinton was in no position to help Gore or even to try to forge a consensus in the country. He simply had no role to play as a force for national unity. While a shadow will hang over Bush, Gore would have faced a power surge if he had won. Most Bush supporters seem convinced that Gore was trying to steal the election. To Republicans, the Florida recount meant that the fix was in for a predetermined Democratic victory. Bush supporters found a powerful voice in Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote last Friday, "Count first and rule legality afterwards is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires." For weeks now, a majority of Bush supporters have said they would refuse to accept Gore as the legitimate President if he were declared the winner. That hostility was not reciprocated by Gore supporters, only a third of whom said they would not accept Bush. Did the Supreme Court's decision last week to stop the Florida recount make Gore look like a martyr? No. According to last Sunday's Gallup Poll, a majority of Americans still felt Gore should concede. Gore looked more like a loser than a martyr. The Florida Legislature and U.S. House had positioned themselves as reserve forces for the GOP, ready to march in and save Bush if they had to. The wrath of the Florida electorate would likely be keen two years from now if voters saw the Legislature as usurping the will of the voters. "I'm hoping that ... we will have finality and we won't have to act," said a Republican legislator whose district voted for Gore. Gov. Jeb Bush has, until lately, tried to stay out of the spotlight. But he has little hope of escaping a voter backlash in 2002. No one was better positioned to put in the fix than the governor. The Supreme Court has risked the greatest damage. Its rulings reveal a court bitterly divided along partisan lines—just like the rest of the country. Scalia went so far as to write that the court's initial 5-4 stay of the Florida recount "suggests that a majority of the Court ... believe that [Bush] has a substantial probability of success." It has now become acceptable to make the judiciary a target of partisan attack. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas described the Florida Supreme Court decision mandating a recount as "an act of judicial aggression" and "a mechanism for providing Mr. Gore with a victory he was unable to win November 7th." When the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision a day later, the Senate Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said the high court's "credibility is so diminished, and their moral posture is so diminished, that it will take years to repair." In fact, polling shows most Americans believe that the Justices' personal political views have influenced the Court. Nevertheless, nearly three-quarters said they would accept the Court's ruling as legitimate—including two-thirds of Gore's supporters. Why? Because Americans want closure. The U.S. Supreme Court, more than any other institution, is positioned to bring this matter to a close. The Court's legitimacy, in this case, is driven by voters' desire for the election fiasco to end. What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. More from National Journal. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. William Schneider is the Cable News Network's senior political analyst. He is also a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and a contributing editor for the Los Angeles Times, National Journal, and The Atlantic Monthly. His column appears every week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C. For information on National Journal Group publications, see NationalJournal.com. All material copyright © 2000 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.