Posted on 10/31/2001 9:54:23 AM PST by LavaDog
Three weeks into a war, NBC’s Today show decided, what better time to bring on a guest to declare: "I do conclude that, based on what I saw in a year of investigation, that Al Gore won this election."
Today led its 8:30am half hour on Tuesday morning with an interview with Jeffrey Toobin, the legal analyst for a competing network, ABC News, about his new book, Too Close to Call: The Thirty-Six-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election. Co-host Katie Couric quoted from the book: "‘The wrong man was inaugurated on January 20th 2001 and this is no small thing in our nation's history. The bell of this election can never be un-rung and the sound will haunt us for some time.’"
Apparently, it’s still haunting NBC News. On Today, Toobin charged:
"Katherine Harris' office was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican campaign and they decided that they did not want all the votes to be recounted because of the potential peril to the Republican's chances. He also lamented how "Republicans and their supporters were tougher, they were smarter, they were more ruthless. And the Democrats, whether it's Al Gore or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, were a little gun-shy and I think they paid the price."
Couric prompted Toobin: "Also the Republicans were fueled by their, their hatred of Bill Clinton which you talk about in the book as well." She ended by wondering: "If in fact this election was such a mess, and if as you assert the wrong person is now in the White House, did the media do its job?"
Couric set up the October 30 segment, as taken down by the MRC’s Geoffrey Dickens: "The 2000 election had the nation waiting 36 tumultuous days to find out who would be the 43rd President of the United States. During those chad-filled days we watched as then Vice President Al Gore addressed the nation and ask that every ballot be counted while Texas governor George W. Bush countered by making the point that, every vote had in fact been counted. Now in his latest book called 'Too Close To Call,' best-selling author Jeffrey Toobin gives us a behind the scenes account of the strangest election in U.S. history. Hey Jeffrey, good morning. Welcome back to Today. Nice to see you again. A lot of people probably feel as if this election seems as if this election seems like it was a lifetime ago. And you admitted to me during the commercial the timing could not have been worse for you given what has transpired in the last, you know, several months."
Jeffrey Toobin: "I live in the real world and I even live in New York. And I know that 9-11 really dominates all our thoughts right now. But you know 11-7 as some of us refer to it is a very important event in our history. And I think, you know as we gain some distance from it and as we see what the stakes really were in that election it may turn out to be all the more important to find out, you know what really happened."
Couric: "Do you feel though that people might want to put that behind them as they focus on the present and the future?"
Toobin: "It's a fair point and one, one thing that I'm clear about is that you know George Bush is the winner. He's the Commander-in-Chief, he's the President. No dispute from me."
Couric: "Super popular."
Toobin: "At the moment, yes. But I do conclude that, based on what I saw in a year of investigation that Al Gore won this election."
Couric: "In fact you write Jeffrey, quote, 'The wrong man was inaugurated on January 20th 2001 and this is no small thing in our nation's history. The bell of this election can never be unrung and the sound will haunt us for some time.'"
Toobin: "This was a bad process in Florida. This was a process that I don't think lead to the Democratic will of the electorate being, being vindicated. You know that is a historian's view, that's a journalist's view. I'm not trying to get the results overturned but I do think it's our job as citizens to look hard at how our institutions function and I don't think they function very well."
Couric: "But even looking at the reports, Jeffrey, following the election that were commissioned by say the Miami Herald or various news organizations. I remember looking at them and thinking, I am so confused. I don't even understand, first the process, you know to some degree, and then what exactly went wrong."
Toobin: "Well there are so many things that went wrong. And what's so interesting about spending a year on this project is that you see that a lot of what we thought we knew was wrong. For example we always heard, you even mentioned it at the top, you said, 'Well George Bush said the votes had been counted and recounted.'"
Couric: "James Baker, of course, that was his mantra."
Toobin: "Over and over again. Did not happen. What happened. Remember because the election was within a half of a percent there was supposed to be an automatic recount in the first two days after the election. And the results came out and that's what prompted the Republicans to say the votes had been counted and recounted. One quarter of the votes in Florida, 1.25 million votes were never recounted. Have never been recounted to this day."
Couric: "Because of one woman."
Toobin: "Because of Katherine Harris. Katherine Harris' office was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican campaign and they decided that they did not want all the votes to be recounted because of the potential peril to the Republican's chances. So what happened was all the optical-scanned ballots, almost all of the optical-scanned ballots, those are the one's with like the SAT tests-"
Couric: "Right."
Tobin: "They were not recounted and have never been recounted to this day."
Couric: "Had they been would the results be different?"
Toobin: "Don't know, don't know. That's not what I base my conclusion on. What I base my conclusion on is things like 3700, 3400 votes for Pat Buchanan in Palm Beach, County. Thousands of black voters not, disenfranchised in Jacksonville."
Couric: "In fact Ruth Bader Ginsburg, you write, wrote an opinion and then took it out about the race issue in Florida. Tell me about that. She and Scalia were butting heads. Justice Scalia I should call him."
Toobin: "See this, this, again is why it's fun to write a book about this. That's right, Justice Scalia, just a little respect Katie."
Couric: "Okay, sorry."
Toobin: "There was a behind the scenes struggle in the Supreme Court. Justice Ginsburg who was one of the dissenters said, remember the majority said that George Bush's equal protection rights were violated. And Justice Ginsburg said, 'I don't think so. In fact the only equal protection potentially I see is that of black voters.' So Justice Scalia wrote her a memo that said, 'you know you are using Al Sharpton tactics in the Supreme Court.' And Justice Ginsburg, stung by that criticism, withdrew that part of her opinion."
Couric: "Why didn't she stick to her guns?"
Toobin: "Well I can't really answer that question. But I think it illustrates a larger theme of my book which is that the Republicans and their supporters were tougher, they were smarter, they were more ruthless. And the Democrats, whether it's Al Gore or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, were a little gun-shy and I think they paid the price."
Couric: "In fact you talk about stylistically the impact that say an Al Gore had making his case vs. George Bush making his case. But George W. Bush, President Bush now, seemed to be so much more laid back. You mention that he was in his pajamas at 9 o'clock night, right when the Supreme Court decision came down."
Toobin: "When we were all struggling to make sense of it on the front steps of the Supreme Court. Remember it was about 10:30 in the east, 9:30 in the Midwest where then Governor Bush was and he was on the phone with Karl Rove trying to figure out what it meant. And he mentioned that he happened to be in his pj's at 9:30, which is, you know that's the way George-"
Couric: "Well why was that so much more effective stylistically than say Al Gore who was much more academic in his sort of pursuit?"
Toobin: "Because George W. Bush said to his people, principally, James Baker, 'get it done, period. I don't want to know the details. Get it done.' And so that's why the Republicans had protestors in the streets, the Democrats didn't. That's why the Republicans had governors and senators down in Florida, the Democrats didn't. That's why the Republicans, you know-"
Couric: "Also the Republicans were fueled by their, their hatred of Bill Clinton which you talk about in the book as well."
Toobin: "Bill Clinton is the great specter behind the scenes on both sides here. You know the impeachment struggle, which I wrote my last book about, I really didn't realize how closely tied these stories were. The Republicans transferred all that energy, all that passion to getting this election won and it really worked."
Couric: "In closing, if in fact this election was such a mess and if as you assert the wrong person is now in the White House did the media do its job?"
Toobin: "Well this was a hard thing to cover. I mean we were all struggling to figure out what Florida election law was. You know I think the value of looking back at a subject like this is you see a lot of what you didn't see for the first time. I think the media did okay. I think we stumbled along the way we usually do. And we did a better job than we might have. But this is a big story in our history and I think it will only seem bigger as the time passes."
Couric: "Well I think it's great that you've been able to shed some light on the whole process even though what your shedding light on isn't very pretty. The book is called 'Too Close to Call.' Jeffrey Toobin good to see you again. Don't be a stranger. Come back. I know you're on the other show occasionally, whatever. Anyway thanks Jeffrey. If you would like to read an excerpt from 'Too Close To Call,' you can log onto our website at today.msnbc.com."
This isn’t Toobin’s first book to review events from a left-wing perspective. A couple of years ago he penned Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal that Nearly Brought Down a President. It was about the right-wing effort to use the Lewinsky incident to bring down President Clinton. A January 13, 2000 CyberAlert item reported: Good Morning America featured ABC News legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin as Charlie Gibson noted how in his book he wrote that "Clinton was, by comparison, the good guy in this struggle" while conservatives "were willing to trample...the Constitution in their effort to drive him from office."
YOU LOST!!! GET OVER IT!!!
BTW, did Today give as much attention to Bill Salmon's book on how the Gore campaign tried to hijack the Presidency?
TOTAL, COMPLETE CRAP
(I wish I could say what I want to.)
My thought exactly.....
But, what's the worry? The fact that Toobin, Couric, and other lefties will be scarred for life, unable to sleep, and emotionally unhinged over the fact that GW Bush became the 43rd President pleases me beyond words.
He is basing his conclusion not on any hard, objective evidence. He is basing his conclusion on his feeling that the votes for Buchanan cast erroneously, and that there were disenfranchsed black voters in Jacksonville. Yeah, that's convincing.
A boycott is possible as well as understanding who funds these people.
The recounts showed that Bush won. Period.
His argument is that some people were too stupid to follow instructions and voted for Buchanan instead of Gore and that some other people were too stupid to follow instructions and voted for two candidates instead of just Gore, therefore Gore should have won.
Fine, if he wants to play that game, let's take him at his word.
So we give Gore a few thousand more votes.
Then we note the people who were deterred from voting in the Central time zone due to the incorrect call of Florida, in counties that went 2-1 for Bush.
Maybe Gore's still ahead.
Then we take into account all the felons who voted but shouldn't have. These people were registered 2-1 Democratic and clearly broke for Gore.
Then we adjust for all the non-citizens who voted, who again broke for Gore.
So even if we take Toobin at his word and make adjustments based on his claims, if we make ALL such adjustments, Bush still comes out on top.
I don't know why Toobin wasted a year writing this book. His conclusion was written in January, then he did his research. The fact that one of us could knock down his conclusion in a couple minutes just by citing things he didn't mention (like felons and non-citizens) shows how weak his argument is.
Took you that long to figure out the Today show is a waste of electromagnetic frequency? I stopped watching when they sacked Jane "Not Blonde Enough" Pauley.
Because she was wrong! And knew it!
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