A tale of two Americas is emerging from this race. Normal married folks, by and large, supported George Bush, while the “sophisticates” and the Democratic Party's aggrieved backed Al Gore. One might call it, to borrow Richard Nixon's phrase, the Silent Majority vs. the Politically Correct.
Gore's Fifth Column has, naturally, been the media. They rode George W. Bush hard throughout the campaign, punishing him for his every deviation from mainstream orthodoxy. Gore, meanwhile, got mostly a pass for his breathtaking resume of whoppers and scandals.
Did most journalists pull the lever for Gore? No doubt. In 1992, journalists overwhelmingly supported Bill Clinton. The same held true in 1996. Why should this year be any different?
If Bush loses the recount in Florida, the media is largely to blame. In one of the more outrageous examples of journalistic malpractice, all the major news organizations — beginning with Dan Rather and CBS — prematurely called Florida for Gore early on Tuesday night, thus depressing Republican turnout both in Florida and throughout the country.
Are press pooh-bahs agonizing over this potential injury to democracy? Hardly. They appeared on Tuesday night, judging from their chuckles, blithely indifferent to their destructive influence on the election.
This cliffhanger election reminds us once again of the dominant media's power. The Fourth Estate is the fourth branch of our government, looming over the other three with its awesome hold on public opinion.
It is high time we drop the fiction that the networks are non-partisan engines of information. They can't even be trusted to give us accurate vote totals. Two gigantic gaffes on one election night — both involving the same state — should give even the most dogged defenders of the mainstream media pause.
Gore's historic first — retracting his concession to Bush — is a typically classless move, epitomizing his status as a deracinated yuppie politician for whom winning is everything.
Apparently Nixonian honor is even beyond Gore. Nixon conceded to John F. Kennedy in 1960, even though he had good reason to hold out. Historians argue that the Kennedy family used mobsters under the direction of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (father of Gore campaign chairman William Daley) to buy the election. Nixon, fearing the division a contested election might cause, gave the election to the Kennedys.
The Bushes aren't the Kennedys, needless to say. Bush is more sinned against than sinning in this race. The Democrats played a myriad of dirty tricks on him — from scaring the elderly to excavating ancient offenses to getting inmates to vote — and he still appears to have beaten them.
Barbara Streisand and the illuminati gave three reasons for slavishly supporting Gore: the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court. Bush threatens our “way of life,” they bleated, obliquely referring to their pagan pro-abortion philosophy. Some, like director Robert Altman and actor Alec Baldwyn, have even threatened to leave the country if Bush wins.
Can we please hold them at their word?
We can only hope that Bush wins and does indeed threaten their way of life. At the least a Bush victory means incremental movement toward a more wholesome public life. After the endless presidency of Bill Clinton, the history of which will be delivered to future generations in a brown paper bag, reform hardly seems possible. But Bush promised it.
He also promised pro-life legislation. The Republicans tried in vain to pass a partial-birth abortion ban under Clinton. But Bush has vowed to sign it.
Of course, the Supreme Court could veto it, as they did earlier this year when they told Nebraskan voters that they had no right prohibiting near-infanticide in their own state.
But this court, too, may pass. One of the more heartening moments in the campaign was Bush's statement that he would select justices like Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, not judicial activists.
True, his father chose David Souter, who has become the liberal darling of the court. But Dubya appears to have learned from his father's mistakes. Tax cuts and pro-life legislation — once thought hopelessly unfashionable and undoable — may yet resurface in American politics.
As Florida goes, so goes the nation.
