The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . From Washington, I'm Jim Lara, Vice President Gore's address to the nation tonight on this special edition of the news hour. . The biggest obstacle to feeding the world is not the food supply. It's just politics. Who is dedicated to opening the borders to get food to the people who need it?

. . . . . . This program was also made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to PBS stations from viewers like you. Thank you. Vice President Gore is about to speak to the nation. He's expected to formally end his bid for the presidency. His decision followed last night's five to four ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. He said the Florida Supreme Court violated the U.S. Constitution when it ordered hand recounts of disputed ballots statewide. The Vice President just called Governor Bush a few moments ago and now from the old executive office building in Washington. Here's the Vice President with his running mates, Senator Lieberman and family members.

Good evening. Just moments ago, I spoke with George W. Bush and congratulated him on becoming the 43rd President of the United States. And I promised him that I wouldn't call him back this time. I offered to meet with him as soon as possible so that we can start to heal the divisions of the campaign and the contest through which we've just passed. Almost a century and a half ago, Senator Stephen Douglas told Abraham Lincoln who had just defeated him for the presidency. Partisan feeling, the most yield to patriotism. I'm with you, Mr. President, and God bless you. Well, in that same spirit, I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside and may God bless his stewardship of this country. Neither he nor I anticipated this long and difficult road certainly neither of us wanted it to happen.

Yet it came and now it has ended. Resolved as it must be resolved through the honored institutions of our democracy. Over the library of one of our great law schools is inscribed the motto, not underman, but under God and law. That's the ruling principle of American freedom, the source of our democratic liberties. I've tried to make it my guide throughout this contest as it has guided America's deliberations of all the complex issues of the past five weeks. Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the Court's decision, I accept it. I accept the finality of this outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity of the people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession. I also accept my responsibility, which I will discharge unconditionally, to honor the new President-elect and do everything possible to help him bring Americans together in fulfillment of the great vision that our Declaration of Independence defines and that our Constitution affirms and defends.

Let me say how grateful I am to all those who supported me and supported the cause for which we have fought. Tipper and I feel a deep gratitude to Joe and Hadassa Lieberman, who brought passion and high purpose to our partnership and open new doors, not just for our campaign but for our country. This has been an extraordinary election, but in one of God's unforeseen paths, this belatedly broken impasse can point us all to a new common ground. For its very closeness can serve to remind us that we are one people with a shared history and a shared destiny. Indeed, that history gives us many examples of contests as hotly debated as fiercely fought with their own challenges to the popular will. Other disputes have dragged on for weeks before reaching resolution, and each time both the victor and the vanquished have accepted the result peacefully and in a spirit of reconciliation, so let it be with us.

I know that many of my supporters are disappointed, I am too, but our disappointment must be overcome by our love of country. And I say to our fellow members of the world community, let no one see this contest as a sign of American weakness. The strength of American democracy is shown most clearly through the difficulties it can overcome. Some have expressed concern that the unusual nature of this election might hamper the next president in the conduct of his office. I do not believe it need be so. President-elect Bush inherits a nation whose citizens will be ready to assist him in the conduct of his large responsibilities. I personally will be at his disposal, and I call on all Americans, I particularly urge all who stood with us to unite behind our next president. This is America.

Just as we fight hard when the stakes are high, we close ranks and come together when the contest is done. And while there will be time enough to debate our continuing differences, now is the time to recognize that that which unites us is greater than that which divides us. While we yet hold and do not yield our opposing beliefs, there is a higher duty than the one we owe to political party. This is America, and we put country before party. We will stand together behind our new president. As for what I'll do next, I don't know the answer to that one yet. Like many of you, I'm looking forward to spending the holidays with family and old friends. I know I'll spend time in Tennessee and mend some fences, literally and figuratively. Some have asked whether I have any regrets, and I do have one regret that I didn't get the chance to stay and fight for the American people over the next four years. Especially for those who need burdens lifted and barriers removed, especially for those who feel their voices have not been heard.

I heard you, and I will not forget. I've seen America in this campaign, and I like what I see. It's worth fighting for, and that's a fight I'll never stop. As for the battle that ends tonight, I do believe, as my father once said, that no matter how hard the loss, defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out. So for me, this campaign ends as it began with the love of Tipper and our family. With faith and God and in the country, I have been so proud to serve from Vietnam to the vice presidency. And with gratitude to our truly Darlas campaign staff and volunteers, including all those who work so hard in Florida for the last 36 days. Now, the political struggle is over, and we turn again to the unending struggle for the common good of all Americans and for those multitudes around the world who look to us for leadership and the cause of freedom. In the words of our great hymn, America, America, let us crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

And now, my friends, in a phrase I once addressed to others, it's time for me to go. Thank you, and good night, and God bless America. And so ends a long, long election campaign for Vice President Gore. Governor Bush, the all but official president, elect now, will address the nation in less than an hour at 10 p.m. Eastern time. We pause now to allow some stations to resume their regular programming. Some reaction now from Shields and G. Go, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Wall Street Journal columnist Paul G. Go. Well, Mark, how did he do? Jim, he has never been better. Nothing became his candidacy like the leaving of it. It was deaf, it was appropriate, it had humor, it had personal warmth, there was no self pity.

He was totally appropriate in the way he spoke of Governor Bush, President elect Bush, country before party. I mean, there was something lyrical and poetic about Al Gore. Whatever you say about Al Gore, those are not words easily associated with him in his platform appearances. I mean, there was something special about him tonight. You agree, Paul? I do agree with him. I thought there was something lighter about him, almost as if some kind of burden had been lifted. I thought he was excellent. I mean, it was not about him. I mean, it was about him, but it wasn't about him in the sense of self pitying or feeling frustrated. It was, he spoke about the cause that they all fought for, to reassure his supporters. He talked about the country, he talked about the honored institutions. And he, which is I think what people wanted to hear. And it was a big opportunity for Al Gore tonight because people want to feel sympathy for somebody who loses,

who puts everything into it and then loses. But when you're fighting and fighting and fighting, you don't give people that opportunity to feel that way. He gave people, I think, tonight an opportunity to say, look, he fought and here he's risen above defeat to sound a unifying note. In some ways, Mark, the mark of a good speech sometimes or a good appearance or a good impression is what you did not say. And I noticed that the Vice President said nothing about even how close he came or how many votes he got. He didn't say 5-4, he did say disagreed with the Supreme Court decision, but. And would have been disappointed. But I mean, we put a country before a party to those of you who's caused, who's been or I carried. I know I share your disappointment. And I ask you, but that's why I say there was not even a reference to self pity.

But I got more votes than any American history except Ronald Reagan who twice won in landslides. I mean, that's an amazing achievement. I mean, it's probably an empty epitaph at this point. But I mean, still, there was no, there was not even a centila or a hint of self pity. John, I'm very critical of the Vice President and this whole post-election exercise. I think it was extraordinary. And I think he violated one of the sort of the informal rules of politics, particularly the Democratic consensus requires, which is that you bow out, even in close elections, especially in close elections. And especially at the higher the level of the contest. But I think tonight, he did go quite a ways to repairing some of that damage. And I think that Governor Bush is going to have to respond in kind. Do you think, Mark, that the Democrats who are very upset about this conclusion, both in terms of what the Supreme Court did and did not do? And it's over now.

Are they going to heed what the Vice President said? Are they going to call it, do you think? I think the ones are deep. And I don't think they feel that Al Gore needs to apologize. So damn, any damage was done by the cause that I don't think that anybody in this country tonight knows who won the state of Florida. And the only way we ever would have known is if George Bush would want to recount manually or whatever. So I don't think there's any sense, Paul is certainly not speaking for any Democrats when he says that. I think I think the feelings are quite deep. There was a sense, Jim, right from the beginning of using the words like stealing the election. That Al Gore was seeking a full count, was trying to steal the election. And we had it down 150 votes, I think the last time we looked over the weekend. And I mean, the idea that somebody had won this and it belonged to one side. And the feelings did do one deep. There's no question about it. This is a fascinating campaign. All the passion of this election year began on November 7th, 90% of it did, and came all the way forward December 13th.

I mean, the campaign itself was rather a passionless campaign for most of the season. Not that we're not feelings running terribly high. Democrats would for Gore, Republicans would for Bush. But I mean, it wasn't one like 1968 or even 1980. And I think that he called Democrats to a higher standard tonight. I don't know if it's going to take a while. Paul, are you saying that Al Gore has to answer for this, in other words, that he should never have challenged these results. The combination of the closeness in Florida and the fact that he was ahead and remains ahead. And the popular vote was not enough reason for him to have done what he did. No, I don't think so. I mean, it's certainly an important talking point, but we would have had a completely different election if the popular vote. A completely different campaign, I'm sorry, if the popular vote determined the election.

No, no, I don't mean legally or any of that. I mean, just in terms of the state of mind that the public would carry to a man challenging this kind of result. Legally, I mean, he was within his rights, obviously. But democracy lives on more than laws. It lives also in consensus and a trust. And trust, in particular, for people in high office, and trust in particular about elections, and losers concede. And they should do so, I think, by and large, especially with high office, after you have a recount in a close election. That was certainly justified for him to ask for that recount. But to pursue every single legal challenge. There were several steps along the way where he was in the protest phase or when some of the lower courts ruled against him. But he pursued it and pursued it and pursued it. And the one, if there's a background here that lacks grace, it wasn't the statement which I have praised. It's the fact that he got out when he didn't have any more options when he was shut down.

What about that, Mark? Well, I mean, he really did carry it to the very end. He carried it to the very end. He said he would abide by the court's decision by the Supreme Court of Florida's decision. And what happened, Jim, was that Jim Baker, the main nuances of the Bush family, announced on Sunday that that would not good enough for him, that the Supreme Court of the United States decision was not good enough for them, that if necessary, they'd go to the Florida legislature. Now, I don't know who was exhausting avenues here. I mean, Al Gore pursued a legal redress. I mean, on Saturday afternoon, we were counting the ballots in Florida. It was proceeding a pace. I mean, it was a marvelous testimony to the rule of law. The Forest Supreme Court said count the ballots. People went to county court houses and began judges, began counting the ballots. And then the United States Supreme Court said stop counting, and they stopped counting. It was really rather admirable, and I think exceptional. I don't think we're going to resolve this one.

But I'm going to wave a magic wand and go back to the campaign before Election Day, the one that led up to November the 7th. So Al Gore standing there tonight, and he's conceding, I didn't win. He said, or I mean, whatever. I mean, now we have another man who's now going to be president. What ifs does he have to bear as he walks away? Is he walks off this stage? If I'd only done this, if I'd only said that, if I'd... Are there any big ones that leaked a mind? Well, he's got to look at it, Jim, and say every political historian, every political scientist, was confounded by the selection. All the signals. If during your term of office, the unemployment rate goes down. If during your term of office, the stock market goes out. The stock market went from 3800 to 11,000. Unemployment was cut in half. The country just exploded economically. The country was at peace. There are twice as many democracies in the world today as the world before Bill Clinton became president of the United States. I mean, it was just an exceptional period, and he lost.

I mean, so he's got to look and say, are there any good answer? Possibly more propitious, more congenial circumstances under which to run. Well, what would you, what leaps to your mind, as the big... What did he do wrong? Well, I mean, he never did, and that's why I think tonight was so exceptional. He never connected. He never connected personally. There was always that sense of when he began talking. There was a stentorian way. There was almost a platform set, running against a candidate who had a very easy and almost informal and approachable manner. And I think that Al Gore's likability factor from the time he entered this campaign to today never improved significantly, as people got to know him better. They didn't feel more comfortable with him. And that was certainly... I don't know if you could look strategically and theoretically and say what he had done differently. He's got to have the great consolation, though, of his family. I mean, there's no question.

I mean, what you saw in this campaign was a family that was committed to him, was comfortable with him, a wife that was very much in love with him, and children. They were all involved. They were all involved, and all committed, and terribly, terribly fond of him. What do you think would run for Al Gore? Well, he never did figure out how to deal with Bill Clinton. I don't think that the Clinton legacy was the unalloyed asset that many Democrats do. He has he had prosperity, and that was winded his back, but he also had the ethical moral problems. I think... And those were a heavy, heavy burden. I mean, when you look at the map of where Gore won and where he lost, he'd lost in the cultural, traditional center of the country. He lost in the heartland. He got he won on the coast, and lost in the center. And in some of the old progressive states, and the North Shore, but if you're lucky, it was that cultural divide, I think, that ultimately defined this election. It may not define this going coming out, but it defined this election, and he never found a way to take advantage of the prosperity,

but separate himself somehow from Clinton and that ethical problem. Paul, there's some old-fashioned conventional wisdom on this old-fashioned meaning that nobody's talked about, and none of us have talked about it since Election Day because we've had all of this. And it was just one line that this election was lost by Al Gore rather than one by George W. Bush. I don't buy that. I think that history will look more kindly on the vice president's campaign before Election Day because some of the problem he had was Clinton. And I think no better example of that than Arkansas. He couldn't carry Arkansas. Bush was not a fabulous candidate by any stretch. He was in experience at the presidential level, but he ran a shrewd campaign. No question about it. He unified his party. He put ideas on the table and competed in areas on issues. Republicans hadn't competed since 1964 or earlier, like Social Security. Mark, where do you come on this question? I think that I think that he lost, I think Paul makes a very valid point about the relationship.

He never learned how to dance alone. He never became comfortable. He's not easy. No, it is. For those of us who do. Jim, the other thing is, the Clinton problem remained a serious problem with him. The Wall Street Journal poll shows that people want the Clinton. I mean, Bill Clinton has a higher job rating today than Ronald Reagan had than Eisenhower had in his eight-year. But people are plurality. I think it's already. I actually want the Clinton era over. They want him to go. Almost 50%. And it's truly amazing. And I think I come back to what really saved George Bush. And George Bush, I'm sure, probably doesn't want to think about it. And that was Tom Delay. Tom Delay stopped, a move in the Congress of the United States after the 1998 elections, that would lead to the center of Bill Clinton.

And Bill Clinton would come to the Well of the House, and he would admit his contrition and apologize to the country and to the Congress for what he had done. And there were back-channel negotiations, Jim, about cutting Bill Clinton's first five years of his pension. And if they'd done that, proceeded with it, Henry Heide had agreed to a vote in the judiciary committee. They had agreed to that. It would have been ceremonial. It would have been over. And Gore would have been free of the Clinton. But Tom Delay stopped it. He revved up the Christian right. He revved up the conservative talk show force. And they said, look, we can't have a censure. That's extra constitutional. We're going to go through the impeachment. But through the impeachment, there was a dissatisfaction. And there was completely unresolved. And so this impeachment was very much an element in this election. And agree. I thought so all along. I know. You've been saying it. No. I think if it had gone forward. Because there was, I mean, all the Democrats in the judiciary committee were fared. And there were at least a half a dozen Republicans. There was no catharsis. Is Al Gore finished as a potential political leader in this country? I have thought, yes.

And I've thought, and I think his advisors, most of them, were telling him that very same thing, which is one reason I think he fought as hard as he did. I would say that with this performance tonight, he may have given himself a chance at a second act. A few seconds. Great speech tonight. Improved his chances enormously. And just recall Richard Nixon in 1962. You don't have Richard Nixon kick around anymore. He says last press conference lost the governorship of California. You came back just six years later to win the presidency. There are second acts in American politics. Absolutely. Mark Paul, thank you both very much. Another pause now to allow stations to resume the regular news hour recorded earlier or other programming. Election Day 4 president was in fact 36 days ago. The fierce post-election struggle for victory was finally halted last night by the action of the highest court in the land when it reversed the floor to Supreme Court's recount decision.

Betty Ann Bowser summarizes what the nine justices said and how they said it. The ruling came just after 10 o'clock last night sending reporters scrambling to make some sensitive. Sorry, Peter. We're still trying to work our way. Nobody should be embarrassed. It's a highly confusing opinion and with so many descents, I think it would be irresponsible to come out and give you definitive things. It was a 65-page document with six different justices writing opinions. In the unsigned majority opinion, the high court indicated it was uncomfortable with its role in determining the next president. None are more conscious of the vital limits on judicial authority than are the members of this court and none stand more in admiration of the Constitution's design to leave the selection of the president to the people. But they said, when contending parties invoke the process of the courts, however, it becomes our unsought responsibility to resolve the federal and constitutional issues the judicial system

has been forced to confront. The five-member majority, Renquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, said the hand recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court violated the Constitution's Equal Protection Guarantee because the ballots were judged by different standards, and the justices found when a court orders a statewide remedy, there must be at least some assurance that the rudimentary requirements of equal treatment and fundamental fairness are satisfied. The majority also said a redesigned recount now would be difficult because it could not meet the December 12 deadline to certify electors. It is obvious that the recount cannot be conducted in compliance with the requirements of equal protection and due process without substantial additional work. Two other justices, Suter and Breyer, agreed there were equal protection issues, but felt there

was still time for a fair recount, in a dissent just as Suter wrote, to recount these would be a tall order, but before this court stayed the effort to do that, the courts of Florida were ready to do their best to get that job done. There is no justification for denying the state the opportunity to try to count all disputed ballots now, I respectfully dissent. And he offered a remedy to be done before the Electoral College meets on December 18. In deciding what to do about this, we should take account of the fact that electoral votes are due to be cast in six days. I would therefore remand the case to the courts of Florida with instructions to establish uniform standards for evaluating the several types of ballots. In another dissenting opinion, Justice Ginsburg said the U.S. Supreme Court should not second guess the Florida Supreme Court on matters of state law.

Disagreement with the Florida Court's interpretation of its own state's law does not warrant the conclusion that the justices of that court have legislated. There is no cause here to believe that the members of Florida's high court have done less than their mortal best to discharge their oath of office, and no cause to upset their reason interpretation of Florida law. And Justice Ginsburg added, the court's conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the court's own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the presidency of the United States. I dissent. The most stinging dissent came from Justice Stevens, who said the majority's decision would have broad repercussions. It is the confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's

decision. One thing however is certain, although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an international guardian of the rule of law. I respectfully dissent. Margaret Warner appears further at the court's action. For that legal insight, I am joined once again by two scholars and former Supreme Court clerks who have helped us through much of this saga. Pam Carlin, an election law specialist at Stanford Law School, and John U of the Bold Hall Law School at the University of Berkeley. Welcome back once again. You have both said on this program earlier in this saga that you thought in a politically charged case like this, that the court would try to come up with a unanimous or as close to unanimous as possible ruling. Pam Carlin, as you read through all of these different opinions, what did you see as the fundamental split that made a unanimous ruling impossible? Well, I think the fundamental split that made a unanimous

ruling impossible was that five justices wanted to end the process last night and have it over with, and four justices didn't, and there's no way to reconcile that kind of a conflict. Explain that a little more. Well, the majority held that the equal protection clause had been violated here, and then held that it was going to stop the recount as a result. There's something a little silly about this or a little troubling, and that is having held that the right to vote is a fundamental right. The Supreme Court then essentially did exactly what it had criticized Florida for doing, which is having held that the right was fundamental. It now denied the right to have many voters votes ever counted, having held that the right was fundamental and that the political process should act to protect that right. It then stepped on the other branches and criticized them. It made new law. It came up with a rule that it itself said was good for this case, perhaps, and good for this case only.

And I think there was no way the majority having said that, that the dissenters who either didn't think there was a problem with the recount in the first place, or thought Florida should be given the ability to try to conduct a constitutional recount, could go along with that. So I think once a majority decided it wanted to end the case last night, there was nothing that could have been done to reach unanimous opinion. John, do you agree that was the rub? I mean, you had sooner and prior who were agreeing there was a problem with the recount, but they wanted to try again. Right. I think you had close to unanimous court. You had a seven to two opinion on the Equal Protection Clause violation, but it really was the Section 5, December 12 deadline that caused the deadlock. And I think Pam's quite right that once you had a division on that issue, you're not going to have unanimous court. However, let me say I don't think that that argument or holding is as frivolous as some might think. I think what you had there was actually a reintroduction of the structural argument that the Constitution gave the Florida legislature the power to choose

presidential electors, and that it was up to, since it was up to the Florida legislature, the Supreme Court could intervene and prevent the Florida courts from overriding the Florida legislature's desire to everything be settled by December 12. But I agree that once that there is a critical division between the court as to whether that December 12 deadline was part of the constitutional power of the Florida legislature to set and whether it had to be respected by the Florida courts. But are you surprised as Pam Carlin is that that December 12 deadline, which isn't really a deadline in law, I mean it's a it's a wished for deadline, trumps. Were you surprised that they found it trumped the right of every person to have their vote counted or recounted or looked at manually? Well, I was a little surprised that it came in at the very end of the Percurium opinion in the way that it did, because the Chief Justice's concurrence actually lays out much of the foundation and the reasoning as to why that December 12 date actually became important. It actually is not important

because of the federal law, because of Congress's promise to count as valid electoral votes that are finally chosen by December 12. Instead, according to the Supreme Court, it came in through state law. It's important because the Florida legislature wanted to incorporate it into its own electoral laws. I have to admit I found that a little surprising because the whole opinion of the Percurium Court is about the equal protection clause, but if this was just an equal protection clause case, we'd still be watching the litigation go on in the lower courts. All right, let's talk about Justice Stevens' dissent, and particularly his last or second to the last sentence. Pam Carlin, he was talking about the fact that because the court was overruling the Florida courts, it was implying a lack of confidence in their impartiality, and he said, we may never know with complete certainty who won this election, but the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. What do you think of that?

Well, I think he's right to some extent, which is, as Justice Ginsburg pointed out in her dissent, the last time the U.S. Supreme Court really reached in to slap the face of a state Supreme Court quite the way it did here, decide there's a violation, and then not send the case back so that the state court could fix it was in the 1960s in the Jim Crow South, and those are actually the cases that the Chief Justice in his concurrent sites, cases where you couldn't trust the state courts because the state courts were deeply racist, and to use those cases as the justification for saying you couldn't rely on the impartiality of the Florida courts here, or you couldn't trust their interpretation of Florida law, really does cast serious doubt on the state courts, and that's quite contrary for the justices in the majority here because in a whole range of issues, they're prepared to let the state courts decide even very fundamental issues. They really want to get the federal courts, for example, completely out of the business of making sure that the death penalty

is implemented fairly. They trust state courts there, and so there's something on and contradictory and troubling about their suggesting now that state courts really aren't worthy of trust when it comes to important constitutional issues. John, what did you make of that comment of Justice Stevens? Well, obviously, Justice Stevens is worried about the politicization, and at least the appearance of the politicization of the judiciary. Pam's quite right, this is an unusual situation for the five justices in the majority to be exercising especially intrusive review over what state courts do. I might add there are ones both ways. I think the Florida centers must have found themselves in a very uncomfortable and unusual position in defending state courts as much as they were in these opinions. But I think the important thing to focus on is, is Justice Stevens right that this decision is going to lead to a lack of respect or diminishment of the legitimacy of the Supreme Court and the lower courts. I tend not to think so. I hope his prediction has proven wrong in this regard. I do think this was kind of a once-in-a-lifetime or one-time-only case,

and that you're not going to see the Supreme Court become the focus of political attacks and criticism of its legitimacy a year from now because of this. Let me bring up John, you're staying with you for a minute. Justice Breyer also joined, there were critics inside and outside the court, who said the Supreme Court would be seen as being driven by partisan considerations. He talked about we risk a self-inflicted wound. On the other hand, Justice Thomas, for whom you clerked, said today he was making an appearance, he said don't apply the rules of the political world to this institution. They don't apply. First of all, who's right here? Do you think that did you see any whiff of partisan considerations in this ruling? I actually don't think it was a partisan ruling in the sense that we think of Republican versus Democrat or Bush versus Gore. I think there is a deep divide on the court, but it's about judicial ideology, which isn't really of great concern to everyday Americans. I think there is a deep division on the court about how to interpret the constitution

and the role of the national government versus the state governments. But I don't think you saw some of the heated rhetoric actually. You've seen in a lot of five to four decisions that this court has rendered in the last ten years about cases like abortion, voting rights, affirmative action, criminal procedure rights, where the court, the minority and majority often accuse each other of twisting the law to reach the results they like. You didn't really see that in this case. Pam Carlin, did you see any tinge of partisanship here? No, I didn't. I agree with John Yu on that. What I did see is a kind of fundamental disrespect, which I think is what this five-four split has indicated in a lot of other cases, a kind of fundamental disrespect for the other branches of government both federal and state. And that is the five justice majority here are also the people who have been most inclined recently to strike down congressional statutes, such as the Gunfrey School Zone Act or the Violence Against Women Act. They've been the group that's been most inclined to strike down state legislative reapportionments. And so, I think it reflects a deep ideological divide on the Supreme Court,

but I don't think it's a crude justice sitting in there thinking, do I want George Bush or Al Gore to be president? I don't think it's anything like that. And Pam Carlin, what about the tone of the dissents to lay people reading these? They did sound pretty bitter and much has been made of Justice Ginsburg just saying, instead of I respectfully dissent, which is, I guess, the tradition I dissent. You work with Clark, I guess, 15 years ago, but do you think, how do you read this? Are the divisions more bitter? Is there more bitterness on that court? I don't think that the court is bitter. I think it's deeply divided. And I wouldn't make too much out of the lack of the word respectfully in there. And Justice is often do that when they feel strongly, but it's not an unprecedented thing. I think maybe last term, she did that many, many times. And earlier this week, in fact, she had a case where she's just said, I dissent. So I don't think that I would read this one word as indicative of some deep division, but I think the court was bitterly divided on this case.

And that bitter division reflects itself in the opinions. John, how do you see that? Well, I think Justice Ginsburg is a writer who's very economical with her words, and she'd rather use two words instead of three. So maybe she's just left respectfully out. But going beyond that, I think the justices are not very bitter towards one another. I mean, I clerked on the court with the current membership. And it's amazing to see how well they all get along, given how sharply worded some of their opinions are towards one another. In fact, I think the justices are very good at letting by-gons be by-gons. Something that happens in one case does not have an effect in another case. So I don't think this is the first appearance of some kind of bitter split in the court that's going to affect the way it's going to operate in the future. I think Justice Stevens' words really were pointed at how is the nation and the political system going to view the court as an institution? And you think that it won't do damage. I don't think so. I mean, compare this to the other situations in our history when the court is come under strong political attack, the war on court, the New Deal court, the anti-bellum court

and the martial court. These were periods when the court was a center of the action. It was making a number of decisions and substantive political issues over time that made it the focus of the political debate. This was a one-time-only case. The court's never going to decide this kind of issue again in our lifetimes. And a year from now, they'll be back to signing the regular run of the milk cases that people care about. And I don't think they will be the center of any political focus or criticism after very long. Pam Carlin, your thoughts on that? What this will do to the image of the court? Well, I think it will cause the court some damage. You know, many, many years ago, Justice Jackson said in a case that involved federal and state power about the Supreme Court that they shouldn't be so sure that their reversing state courts was always getting it right. And he said, we are not final because we're infallible. We're infallible because we're final. And in this case, they were quite final. But I think they were also fallible. And I think they will pay some price for that, although nowhere near the kind of price that they paid for cases like Dred Scott.

I don't think this case is Dred Scott. I think this case is more like the case in which the Supreme Court held that if you didn't have enough money to pay the filing fees, you couldn't go bankrupt. This is a case where they delayed the election recount and then said, oh, but it's too late now to have a recount. So I think it's more a case where people will think they were inconsistent and where they rushed in where angels feared a tread. But I don't think this is going to cause the court systematic damage or make it impossible for them to issue other opinions that will garner widespread respect. All right. Well, Pam Carlin, Anchon, you thanks both again very much. Thank you. And finally tonight, some history and erase Juarez. We get that longer view from Newzauer regulars, presidential historians, Doris Kearns' Goodwin and Michael Beshloss and journalist and author Haynes Johnson. Joining them tonight is Richard Norton Smith, presidential biographer and historian.

Well, a 5-4 vote in the Supreme Court settles the whole game 36 days of state Supreme Court deliberations on television, emotional demonstrations on the street, people holding ballots up to the light, maybe the specifics are different. But Michael, have we ever been in a situation like this before? We never have. You know, I have been groping for some frame of reference for the last five weeks. You know, usually you can go back and say, here's a situation in which a president has done this, in which the country has been in this kind of crisis. And there's just no frame for this. And you've seen that, I think, also in Bush and Gore, Governor Bush and Vice President Gore when they've spoken in public. It's had this slightly artificial surreal aspect. They haven't quite known what to say themselves. You know, usually politicians look to pass speeches in history for some guidance. And that is one reason why I think that there's been this sort of odd feeling, both on the part of the candidates and perhaps on the part of all of us, not knowing exactly

sort of what we're going through and how you're supposed to react. And I think one thing that I've been a little bit distressed by, by both Governor Bush and Vice President Gore, is that in this case, they haven't just sort of said, you know, this is a horrible agony that I'm going through. And it's something that the nation is going through. Instead, you've had the Vice President saying, I'm fine and I'm optimistic and I'm sleeping like a baby and Governor Bush giving these very carefully structured speeches. And one thing I think we've all missed is that sense of a leader talking to us, leveling with us and saying, this is something I'm going through too. Doris, uncharted territory? Oh, without question. I mean, I think if we look back a hundred years from now on this election, it seems to me the most important point to understand. It was the moment when democracy found our own electoral system in some disrepair. You know, if you look at the history of the 20th century, in some ways, it's the triumph of democracy abroad over fascism and communism and also the expansion of democracy at home with women's suffrage and civil rights. And yet what this election revealed was when you have an incredibly close election,

we didn't have the machinery ready to count the votes accurately. And we didn't have a process that could do the manual recounts. We have a lot of machines and the poor precincts that aren't working correctly. So I think in some ways, if both candidates were able to realize that they both were hurt by the system, but we are strong enough to be able to repair that system right now, and in fact, the constitutional system worked. Even if the electoral system Roosevelt used to say a nation is like a body. It needs to be clad, housed, and fed. And I think to some extent, our electoral system needs that kind of clothing right now. But we can make it work. The constitutional system provided finality. Everybody tried to act the best they could in this whole circumstance. But I think that's the reason it's uncharted because we haven't looked at our democratic system. It's not only the failure of the machines, I think if we look more carefully, it's the failure of enough people to vote. Think at what would have happened if more out of five out of ten people had voted. Maybe it wouldn't have been if it had been nine out of ten as close as it was. And we've got the campaign fines to finance to deal with. So I think we need to take a hard look at ourself after this is over.

Haynes, what do you think? I agree with that. Absolutely. I mean, the system is in disarray right now. We've all talked before. We've last time we were with you. This was a great civic lesson. We learned a lot about how it's working. That's true. The troops aren't in the streets and tanks aren't roaming down Pennsylvania Avenue, but if you look at where we are, every element of the political system has been tarnished and diminished, including the courts. We have the political system, Congress, the state courts, the legislatures, and the rest, and the press. So all of these things are coming out of it. The question now is not so much of that happened. What do we do about it? And I think that's the real challenge for this new administration that's about to come into Washington. Are they going to reform the way we vote? Are they reform the way so that people have a sense of fairness in the whole prospect of our electoral democracy? And that can be done, but it's not going to be an easy thing, and it's really going to be rebuilding that kind of sense that there's faith that you can count upon it, it works. Richard, should we be careful not to exaggerate the seriousness

of the national predicament? I think that's a good question. I went back last night, I was looking at Sandberg's Lincoln, thinking about a time when not only presidential legitimacy was called into question, but the very survival of the Republic. And in 1862, Lincoln delivered a famous message to Congress, and he said the occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. And I think those words are so applicable to what we're going through now. Sure, we've got problems, but as Doris said, they're largely problems of the machinery, literally, of the machinery, how we cast and how we count votes in this country. There is the election that is the closest parallel to what we're going through is 1876, and during the four-month interregnum that took place, there was talk of civil war. One night while the haises were dining, a bullet was fired through the dining room window. I mean, that was an election that literally threatened to tear this country apart over issues of reconstruction, the nature of states' rights,

the relation of the individuals to the government, the next president for all the challenges that he faces. We'll remember, we'll also get to argue with Congress over how to divvy up a four to six trillion dollar surplus. Well, let's get some other historical insights on what presidents have done at times of deep division in the country, Michael. Part of it is that after drawing their own experience, I keep on thinking of Lyndon Johnson in 1963 after an assassination, the assassination of John Kennedy, and Jackie Kennedy said to him, Lyndon, what a horrible way for you to come in, and he was in a situation where people knew that this was done in his home state, that didn't know him very well, and because largely he had been in Washington for 30 years and served in Congress did almost everything right. You know, I've studied it so closely that he almost didn't put a foot wrong. What he said, whom he met with, the members of Congress, he spoke to every public gesture, so that within a very short period of time, the assassination of John Kennedy as traumatic as it was,

was not something that sort of lived in our political system. We didn't draw darker conclusions at the time. The same was true of Gerald Ford for many of the same reasons. He had been in Congress three decades. He knew exactly what to do after Richard Nixon resigned when people were saying things largely about him, as the person had been chosen by the disgraced ex-president, and once again very quickly he made it sort of a non-issue. So if Governor Bush, President-elect Bush, beginning tonight, could show that same presence of mine sort of that tone-perfect sense of how to behave, he can do that as well, but that remains to be seen. Richard, maybe you could continue with that Ford example. Some of the things that President Ford did were really symbolic and not very concrete, is that right? It's true. Well, he understood that at a time like that, symbolism really was substance. And the most important thing you could do at that time was to begin symbolically to dismantle the imperial presidency. A presidency discredited by scandal, a nation torn apart by the Vietnam War.

He told me once that August 9, 1974 was the worst day of his life. Which you would never guess because he really didn't set a foot wrong that first week. He invited the Congressional Black Caucus to come to the White House. He asked George Mini of the AFL-CIO to come over. He had all the female members of Congress, 13, in those days, where he reiterated his support for the ERA. He even talked about symbolism. He even told the Marine Band to stop playing hail to the chief and replace it with the Michigan fight song. He also went to the VFW and proposed a Vietnam Clemency board, which actually caused a certain wave of resentment from many veterans. But was part of this effort. He decided for the outset. He never wanted to be president. He wasn't accidental president. He wasn't an elected president. But as long or as short as his presidency was, he was going to try to make it a time of healing. I agree with my colleagues what they're talking about.

The various examples. The idea of Richard Nixon, we talked about that. Dwight Eisenhower, when he became president of the United States in the last time the Republicans had the White House and the two houses of Congress, even though they got a tie now, out of that came eventually he divided government and you had Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn, the head of the Senate and the head of the House, meeting with Dwight Eisenhower every single week. They would go down the White House on Monday and that they would sit around the table and they would literally talk about the agenda that the Congress had to take. Now, that was a very different time. Whether you can do it today in the bitterness that you've had recently in our politics or not, but that was an example that worked and the Congress got things done then and they all worked together. That's maybe the model that I would hope you could see now. Doris, there's a lot of talk about olive branches about bipartisanship. Has it really worked in the past, especially after a very bitter contest? Well, I think bipartisanship is almost like motherhood right now. Everybody's going to be saying that President Bush should bring into his new cabinet Democrats

and I suspect he might do that. It's not as easy as it sounds, however, when Nixon tried to have a cabinet of unity after his election in 1968, he asked Humphrey to go to the UN, Humphrey refused. He asked Whitney Young to come to HUD and he refused and he got finally Moynihan. He wanted Jackson to the Defense Department so that it's very hard to make that work and I think the deeper thing, however, even than having a few Democrats in the cabinet, the political culture in Washington is a much deeper poisoned culture. I think that it was after Ford, even after Watergate, and even after Vietnam, I would say because what we've had years of is between Watergate and Vietnam and Bork and the nominations and then the impeachment. We've had one crisis after another where there's not the camaraderie that once was able to sustain Republicans and Democrats and it's partly the system that makes that happen. They used to stay around on the weekends and play poker or drink together. During that time, the Haynes mentioned where Lyndon Johnson was in the Democratic Congress, Rayburn and the Republicans would be there

on the weekends together. Now they go home to raise funds. The media is take some times a negative attack on some of these candidates and place them up when they talk against each other. It somehow emphasizes dissent that we have point counterpoints on all these cable talk shows and the way we campaign now leaves people's reputations destroyed so it's hard for them to shake a hand afterwards and say, okay, I'm with you. I think the most important thing Mr. Bush will have to do is deeper than just bipartisanship in an abstract way. He's got to start repairing the culture and that means repairing the language. I think he has to tell Trent Lott and you can no longer say things like, I hope Hillary Clinton is hit by lightning before she gets here. Think of what that means in our culture. Some comment like that. So I think we've got a much more difficult task in a funny way even though the issues aren't dividing us as deeply as in those other times when they were much more serious, the culture itself has been in disrepair in these last couple decades. Well, thank you all. Good to see you. In the other news of this day,

the crippled USS Cole returned to Pascagula, Mississippi where it was built. It arrived piggyback aboard a Norwegian heavy lift vessel two months ago in Yemen, a suicide bombing blew a hole in the destroyer killing 17 U.S. sailors. Repairs are expected to last a year and cost up to $170 million. Retail sales fell for tenths of one percent and November. The Commerce Department reported today it was the first drop since April led by the biggest decline in new car sales in more than two years. Analysts said the report was one more sign the U.S. economy is slowing. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with further analysis of what now after one of the closest and most challenged presidential elections in history. I'm Jim Lara, thank you, and good night. Imagine a system that produces

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