[Peter Suderman]
Unlike the Indiana Jones films, Recount, which aired last night on HBO, is actually based on real events, namely the brouhaha that went down in Florida after the 2000 election. That hasn't, however, stopped Warren Christopher from getting his undies in a bunch over the film's portrayal of him:
Mr. Christopher said he learned of the film from his tailor, who was asked by the filmmakers to reproduce one of Mr. Christopher’s suits. He said he offered to review the script but never received one. The New York Times gave him a transcript of the scenes in which his character appears.“I was stunned by the excerpt,” he said in an interview. “Much of what the author has written about me is pure fiction. It contained events that never occurred, words I never spoke and decisions attributed to me that I never made.”
Yes, but that's why it's fiction rather than history. Even when working on projects like this, dramatists just don't have the same responsibility to historical veracity as scholars. They're working in different mediums. No one reads a history department monograph and complains that the pacing is off in the third act; similarly, I think it's a little silly to complain when a movie fails to meet the standards of academia.
And I'm not even sure Christopher came off all that badly. Watching the film last night, I got the sense that he was being portrayed mostly as too cautious, too worried about maintaining the dignity of the process and not worried enough about winning -- not the right approach, but certainly a respectable one.
Moreover, I think it's a little odd that Democrats seem to be leading the charge to complain about the film as it's ultimately sympathetic to their position (and that's even if you discount the fact that the GOP portrayals, especially Laura Dern's SNL-like take on Katherine Harris, are arguably less flattering than the portrayals of the Democrats). Both sides are shown to have mishandled the situation, but the film pretty clearly suggests that the process was severely botched, a large number of voters were disenfranchised, and that if all the votes had been counted, there's a good chance Al Gore would have won.
First of all, the plural of "medium" is "media." Secondly, the duty in portraying living persons accurately may not be a moral one, but it is enshrined in private law, and individuals often take such exception that they sue in response to portrayals in what you might consider to be entertainment media.
No, based on extensive recounts sponsored by various media groups, Al Gore would not have won under any method proposed by the Democrats.
"...would not have won under any method proposed by the Democrats." That should be, would not have won under any methods approved by the Florida Supreme Court.
I'm sure some Democrat somewhere has a method where Gore would have won.
No, John F. The Democrats who filed suit in Florida asked for very specific "recounts", and they would have won under *none* of them. There were scenarios under which the could have "won" (mainly involving a Karnak-the Magnificent level of "chad divination"), but for what they asked for, nope.
If anyone has a bitch about how they were portrayed, it has to be Katherine Harris. I watched her interviews and such during the Florida dust-up, and she certainly is a character and played hard-ball, but Dern's performance was well over the top on all the negatives.
I think that JohnF was referring to methods that democrats have devised since this was settled. Certainly, Al Gore's team didn't propose any winning methods.
In short, they lost and undermined the system. Way to go Al.
Since nobody cares to site a source for their opinion, try this...
Address : http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm
"... Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000... half an hour later... Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters..."
But listing more than a sample of Republican vote frauds or voter suppressions is pointless.
Even people who think that Bush won the vote, shrink from defending his administration.
Even Republicans number Bush among the worst presidents in US history, and McCain as McSame.
We need anybody else.