Election 2000: Joe Versus the Volcano

Among Joe Lieberman's worries last Friday was how late the Florida Supreme Court's ruling would come and how early it gets dark these winter days. He had consulted his rabbi about whether he could concede on the Sabbath. As it turned out, Lieberman had to worry not about a concession speech at that point but about whether to indulge--after so far resisting the impulse to either celebrate or grieve--in a moment of relief more passing than he could ever have imagined.

Since Election Day, Lieberman has been the recount absolutist. The moral certainty that drove some of his Senate colleagues to distraction--when he voted his conscience instead of his party--has provided crucial ballast here. Al Gore, under pressure known to change his story, his message, his demeanor and his clothes, has resisted the weight of opinion in favor of getting it over rather than getting it correct. This has meant that Lieberman, considered a happy St. Bernard in 12 years in the Senate--"as moral, decent and honorable a man as I've known there," said Senator John McCain last Friday--has seen his image morph overnight into a Rottweiler. Conventional wisdom holds that a position can't be principle if it is also self-serving. As Lieberman waited to go on Larry King Live recently, I asked him how it feels to go from media favorite to just another pol. With his "What, me worry?" smile, he quoted the late Senator Richard Russell, "You fight until hell freezes over. Then you fight on the ice."

He didn't say that, like Barry Goldwater, he knows he's right. The recount may yet go forward in a race in which the margin of error has vastly exceeded the razor-thin margin of victory. Lieberman faults the media as much as George W. Bush's spin machine for the hole his side finds itself in. And he has a point. At first I thought the media's desire to come to a conclusion whether or not they came to the truth was partly the result of dirty laundry, unrefundable airline tickets and weekends spent doubled up in scarce hotel rooms. But it's actually the passion to be first, even at the cost of being wrong, as election night proved. Reversing themselves several times didn't encourage the networks to admit at four in the morning that the race was too close to call, that we were in a statistical dead heat and the outcome would have to await, at the very least, an automatic recount. Ever since, Gore has been cast in the role of sore loser whose congressional support could evaporate in an instant, a supplicant trying to win in court what he didn't win at the ballot box. And every day the media persist in calling the race anew. A reporter will read the latest polls showing that a majority of the American people don't mind waiting for a thorough recount and then open the next segment with the question "When, in the name of the American people, will this madness end?"