Gore urged his supporters to stay home, pointing out that the campaign was over, that it was time for us to come together as Americans and make a rational and dispassionate decision about who had won. Republicans urged their supporters to protest, and sent interns to Florida to disrupt the recount, along with an "electronic command post" to control the mayhem. Veiled threats were made. At least one official was assaulted. To this day I still can't believe that Republicans printed those absurd and disrespectful "Sore Loserman" signs. The Republicans clearly considered the battle over the recount simply to be a political campaign conducted by other means.

The Democrats' main argument was: every vote should be counted. The Republicans' main argument was: give us the f*cking Presidency. Now.

I watched this develop with growing horror, frustration and anger.

Many of the essential elements of this repugnant spectacle were on display in microcosm when James Baker and Warren Christopher appeared--separately but on the same day--on Meet the Press.

Christopher's arguments were modest and reasonable. As always, his tone was measured and dispassionate. He stuck to the facts. He looked and sounded like what he was--a man struggling with great and weighty issues. He was clearly a statesman, not a salesman.

Baker was a different story entirely. His tone was dogmatic and derisive; he oozed contempt for anyone with the temerity to deny the indubitability of Bush's right to power. His arguments were weak, his methods sophistical. Over and over he asserted that the votes had already been counted--and recounted, and recounted again. Over and over he asserted that Gore would ask for recount after recount until he got the result he wanted. Over and over he asserted that any manual recount must be flawed, that such recounts were purely "subjective," that they involved attempts to "divine" the intent of the voter.

But none of these assertions were true.

As had already become clear, all experts on punch-card machines acknowledged that a machine count was expected to have about a 2% error rate. Machine counts are approximations, to be relied upon only in those cases in which the margin of victory is relatively large. For more accurate counts required by smaller margins of victory, it was always intended that more accurate manual recounts would be used. The margin of victory in this race was too small to be accurately detected by the available machinery. That is to say that many of the votes--votes that would make a difference in such a close election--had never been counted at all. Gore was in no way requesting that the votes be recounted until he won; he was asking that they all be counted at least once.