Bush won, no matter how you look at it.
In April the CBS Evening News only gave 23 seconds to vaguely relaying how a USA Today/Knight-Ridder hand recount in Florida found more Bush votes and in May the show ignored the Palm Beach Post’s discovery that 5,600 felons voted illegally -- 68 percent of whom were registered Democrats. But over the weekend, even before a New York Times story appeared which found nothing which would have changed the outcome, the CBS Evening News jumped to publicize insidious insinuations about what Bush operatives tried to do.
For details about the previous two counts downplayed or skipped by the CBS Evening News, go to:
http://www.mrc.org/news/cyberalert/2001/cyb20010405.asp#1
http://www.mrc.org/news/cyberalert/2001/cyb20010606.asp#5
Saturday’s World News Tonight on ABC also ran a short item on the Times story and on Sunday’s This Week ABC gave George Stephanopoulos nearly four-and-a-half minutes to review the story even though he conceded up front that it uncovered nothing that would have altered the outcome: "The bottom line of this exhaustive account, which comes it at more than 13,000 words, is that Bush won several hundred votes which didn’t comply with Florida law, but there’s less than a one percent chance that these ballots, on their own, would have swung the election toward Gore."
The night before, Russ Mitchell led the July 14 CBS Evening News by implying the GOP strategy discovered by the Times "may have been the deciding factor in winning the White House," as if the Republican effort to count overseas military ballots was some just uncovered secret. After a lengthy report, CBS’s Bobbi Harley admitted that even the expert consulted by the Times found "there was only a slight chance that throwing out those questionable overseas ballots would have put Al Gore in the White House."
Mitchell opened the July 14 broadcast by highlighting what would appear in the New York Times the next day: "More than eight months after election night, there's new fallout from the presidential election of 2000. The New York Times reports in tomorrow's edition that the questionable counting of overseas ballots in Florida may have gained some crucial votes for George W. Bush. Bobbi Harley has more on the war of strategy last fall that may have been the deciding factor in winning the White House."
Harley: "Florida election law is clear when it comes to overseas ballots. They must be postmarked, signed and witnessed. But the six-month-long investigation by The New York Times has found hundreds of those ballots in last year's presidential election did not comply but were counted anyway."
Lance DeHaven-Smith, Florida State University: "Both the letter and the spirit of the law were violated. The letter of the law was clear that you had to have a postmark for it to be a legal ballot, so we were counting the number of ballots here that probably were not legal ballots."
Harley: "George W. Bush won the contested election by only 537 votes. But The Times' investigation uncovered 680 overseas ballots that failed to meet the standard set by Florida law. Three hundred and forty-four showed no evidence they were cast on or before the Election Day. Others had US postmarks. Some had no signatures. Still other voters were not registered. A few ballots came in late. And 19 voters cast two ballots, both of which were counted. Republicans reacting to The Times article that will appear in Sunday's edition denounced the report."
Representative Steve Buyer, Republican Indiana: "But Al Gore needs to have a return, so what happens? The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times go out and they break their article somehow to make allegations against the Bush team. You know what? It's over. Get over it."
Harley: "But while The New York Times found no fraud on the part of either political party, the newspaper contends the Republicans launched a massive behind-the-scenes political and public relations effort to try to count as many military ballots as possible in Bush strongholds, while at the same time trying to block those same ballots in counties likely to vote for Al Gore, and that much of this strategy was discussed in a so-called war room in the offices of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who was also a co-chairperson of Bush's campaign in Florida."
David Host, Florida Secretary of State’s office: "Secretary Harris was fair, consistent and even-handed in every action she took. The proof of that's in the article itself, in that both the Bush and the Gore campaigns are quoted as having complained about the law she cited in her public statements."
Harley: "The Republican campaign to count absentee ballots was an effective counterpoint to the Democrats' push for manual recounts in Democratic counties in south Florida. But the Republicans won a public relations campaign by making a challenge to military ballots seem unpatriotic. And then one of the Democrats' own candidates may have foiled his party's legal challenges."
Senator Joseph Lieberman on Face the Nation in November 2000: "Al Gore and I would never countenance, would never tolerate any specific policy by anybody representing us that was aimed at singling out votes from our military abroad."
Harley concluded: "In the long run, none of this may have mattered. A Harvard University expert on voter patterns and statistical models told The New York Times that there was only a slight chance that throwing out those questionable overseas ballots would have put Al Gore in the White House."
If you are interested in seeing how it took the New York Times so long so say so little, you can read their massive July 15 story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/15/politics/15BALL.html
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