Recount Craving

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Pay any kind of attention to HBO and you'll see that Recount teaser over and over. You know...the docudrama about the Florida vote count muddle that followed the November 2000 election, directed by Jay Roach. I don't care if Politico's Jeff Ressner warned last December that it might be too cautious a dramatization. It feels enticing and is the only thing I really want to see now, but HBO won't be showing it to reviewers and entertainment writers until the tail end of this month.

Recount will debut for HBO viewers on May 25th. I should grow up and be patient, but I know it reads pretty well and my blood is up. I ran an enthusiastic a piece about the script a year ago this month (and got ridiculed by HE readers for being overly impressionable). I can just sense a certain juiciness, is all. Kevin Spacey, Dennis Leary, Tom Wilkinson as James Baker, John Hurt as Warren Christopher, Bob Balaban, Laura Dern as Katherine Harris, Bob Balaban and Al Gore and George Bush as themselves.

comment #1

BurmaShave says ...

Laura Dern's Emmy would seem to be in the bag. I'm also excited to see Balaban play a conservative as it seems incongruous.

comment #2

C Toto says ...

Didn't several major media outlets do their own recounts after the fact, and most of their recount methods showed Bush won (barely)?

comment #3

Josh Massey says ...

Shhhh Toto, don't bring facts into this!

comment #4

scooterzz says ...

between playing ben franklin and james baker, tom wilkinson seems a shoo-in come awards time.....

comment #5

PoisonSkin says ...

taking that O out and its going to say recunt. why

comment #6

D.Z. says ...

Speaking of recounting, [Or should I say recanting?], it looks like Bush finally jumped on the pro-global warming bandwagon. I guess now anyone who doesn't believe in it falls into the "flat earth" club.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080415/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_climate;_ylt=AlbOXwN_9HaPMkuFL6ytIPSs0NUE

comment #7

Movie Watcher says ...

Move it back to the last week of october, just for the hell of it.

comment #8

Caz3773 says ...

Josh & Toto: Yes, most recounts showed Bush won, but he pretty clearly won because of a clear case of massive voter error. And you can make all the jokes you want about stupid Democrats unable to complete their own ballots, but that's a pretty sad way to become President in the face of a 500,000 popular vote margin.

P.S. I actually would have been just as upset if Kerry had squeaked out Ohio in 2004 and won despite Bush winning the popular vote by 1 million...

comment #9

nemo says ...

"massive voter error"

Don't forget the massive liberal Jewish turnout for Pat Buchanan that helped swing Florida for Bush.

comment #10

C Toto says ...

Re: Caz3773's comments. The vote was, indeed, a mess. But the ballots were designed by either a bipartisan team or a dem-heavy team (if memory serves), and if the people can't read a ballot, it's not up to anyone else to suss out who they 'really' meant to vote for after the fact.

Bottom line. Bush won. The vote was as close as humanly possible. Some voters couldn't discern the ballot well enough ... but all of the above isn't a case to overturn the results.

comment #11

C Toto says ...

Re: Caz3773's comments. The vote was, indeed, a mess. But the ballots were designed by either a bipartisan team or a dem-heavy team (if memory serves), and if the people can't read a ballot, it's not up to anyone else to suss out who they 'really' meant to vote for after the fact.

Bottom line. Bush won. The vote was as close as humanly possible. Some voters couldn't discern the ballot well enough ... but all of the above isn't a case to overturn the results.

comment #12

kidkosmic says ...

Bush jumps on the Global Warming bandwagon just as fears of Global Cooling are making a comeback. Soon, Global Warming will disappear as a term and be replaced in all the headlines as "Climate Change." As always, any and all climate change will be the fault of the good 'ol US of A (we will be sued for all hurricanes someday, I predict). Hell is for Hummers.

comment #13

christian says ...

To quote young Alvy Singer, What an asshole:

"As an Independent, it doesn’t bother me at all to be honored at the same dinner with Rush Limbaugh. In fact, to show you how much things have changed for me, one of my greatest missions this year is to convince Rush to support the Republican candidate for President!

The truth is I greatly admire Rush’s love for our country and support for our troops, as shown by his remarks tonight and his generous support of MCLEF. Rush has a big voice but he has heart that is even bigger," - Joe Lieberman.

comment #14

CinemaPhreek says ...

Considering how hard the promos push the idea that the film will present a "balanced" view of the 2000 Florida debacle, why bother? To this day when the event is discussed, the naked thuggery in which the Republicans operated is still glossed over.

They bussed down their staffers from DC to brazenly intimidate the poll workers with mob violence to keep the recount from going forward. That is not some rumor or "left wing paranoia." Many of those staffers have been identified by name and congressional office. And I doubt it will take a cold, hard view of the Supreme Court's actions which decided to meddle in the mess even though two of the judges had immediate family members working in the Bush campaign and would find that the individual has no constitutional right to have their vote count.

That Bush was the winner in several of the later recount tallies is the ultimate irony.

To this day no sweeping overhaul of election laws and practices has been carried out. Worse, we still don't have a constitutional right that all reasonable efforts will be made to record our votes, which in the end means the principle on which the entire country is supposedly based is hallow or downright non-existent.

comment #15

christian says ...

Exactly. And why worry about voting machines that can be easily rigged? We're a Democracy, dammit!

comment #16

Josh Massey says ...

Uh, no we're not.

comment #17

SpinDozer says ...

'Didn't several major media outlets do their own recounts after the fact, and most of their recount methods showed Bush won (barely)?'

'Shhhh Toto, don't bring facts into this!'

In fact, the 2001 news media consortium study of the disputed ballots in the 2000 Florida recount found that there were at least four recount scenarios under which Gore would have won the state of Florida. A November 12, 2001, Washington Post article reported on the findings of the study: "[I]f Gore had found a way to trigger a statewide recount of all disputed ballots, or if the courts had required it, the result likely would have been different. An examination of uncounted ballots throughout Florida found enough where voter intent was clear to give Gore the narrowest of margins."

The news media consortium that sponsored the study, which was conducted by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, included the Associated Press, The New York Times, and CNN, as well as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post Company, and the Tribune Company (which owns the Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel, and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel).

Other conservatives who have repeated this false claim include Wall Street Journal op-ed columnist and author John Fund, FOX News host Bill O'Reilly, syndicated radio host Glenn Beck, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page.

mediamatters

The 50,000 names of "felons" scrubbed from the voter rolls was probably the only thing that made it even close.

comment #18

christian says ...

Josh, how come your president and party keeps using the word "democracy" in reference to what we're trying to spread thru the world? Good enough for them, but not us, eh?

And here's what Lieberman said yesterday (Obama has been a stalwart Joe supporter):

NAPITALIANO: Hey Sen. Lieberman, you know Barack Obama, is he a Marxist as Bill Kristol says might be the case in today’s New York Times? Is he an elitist like your colleague Hillary Clinton says he is?

LIEBERMAN: Well, you know, I must say that’s a good question. I know him now for a little more than three years since he came into the Senate and he’s obviously very smart and he’s a good guy. I will tell ya that during this campaign, I’ve learned some things about him, about the kind of environment from which he came ideologically. And I wouldn’t...I’d hesitate to say he’s a Marxist, but he’s got some positions that are far to the left of me and I think mainstream America.

comment #19

SaveFarris says ...

RECOUNT: The Movie that will make Oliver Stone's "W." script seem nuanced and balanced!!

I'm expecting a whole lot of "violent Republican mobs!" and "racist Republican roadstops!" and "Bush's Cousin called the election!" and not too much focus on the FL Supreme Court and the Democratic's "Military Ballots? F*** em!" attitude. Unless someone in the know tells me otherwise, I'm gonna go ahead and pass on this one.

But I whole-heartedly endorse trying to move it to Late October. Maybe, just Maybe, we can prevent Bush from winning that 3rd term!!!!!!

comment #20

GonePostal says ...

I hope this one is as balanced as it claims to be, because I think it could be great. There was enough crap pulled by both sides that a truly balanced look would make everyone look bad, except perhaps for Pat Buchanan, who was pretty sure all those old Jewish folks didn't really want to vote for him. Who's playing old Pat anyway?

And the ULTIMATE irony is that if Gore had actually pushed for a full statewide recount, instead of a selctive recount of the areas he thought he would do best in, he might have gotten a more sypathetic view from the US Supreme Court and have won the recount and the presidency. Of course, if Gore had run a better camapign that would have been irrelevent, but hell, hindsight is 20/20.

comment #21

christian says ...

There's something meta about reading this thread and seeing the screenwriter crossing the street at the same time. Yo Danny!

comment #22

SpinDozer says ...

'And the ULTIMATE irony is that if Gore had actually pushed for a full statewide recount ...'

That was in fact the correct Legal srategy. However, anyone paying any attention to SCOTUS decision in this matter will note that it was NOT the strength or weakness of the legal arguement that determined the outcome.

comment #23

D.Z. says ...

kidscomic: "Bush jumps on the Global Warming bandwagon just as fears of Global Cooling are making a comeback."

Yeah, that glacier in Chile has finally stopped melting.

comment #24

Josh Massey says ...

Christian: If the President says one thing and the Constitution says another, I'm always going to side with the piece of paper.

comment #25

christian says ...

That's rich, Josh. Then you should be on the impeachment bandwagon too.

comment #26

Dave Polands Gut says ...

Its too bad. the best presidential candidates from 2000 were both vice president candidates

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