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listlessness of post-election life by Al Gore gives the impression
that the Democratic opposition is asleep, perhaps under the hypnosis
of September 11. The national impulse was certainly for a consolidation
of national effort after the Twin Towers and a surcease in partisan
bickering. This point became clear when President Bush gave a speech
to Congress that aroused pretty uniform plaudits and was capped
by a scene of him leaving the chamber and embracing the majority
leader of the Senate. That was affirmatively striking; negatively
so was the deportment of Sen. Hillary Clinton, who was seen by the
television cameras to be twitchy and bored and dismissive, clapping
only perfunctorily at the president's high moments.
There are two signs of Democratic life. Al Gore has been spending
a week in New Hampshire reviving old fidelities. Those of us who
have long attachments to New Hampshire can with impunity remark
that the only reason to spend an entire week there, if you're not
going to see the foliage, is to make a political point, relating
of course to the primary contest that Vice President Gore won in
February 2000, beating Senator Bill Bradley. Citizens who have not
detected in Mr. Gore signs of a fresh political afflatus, talk more
about the simple matter of his being in New Hampshire. His answers
to questions about plans for the future are less interesting than
the appearance of his beard.
Curiosity on this point is legitimately aroused: Why would a man
living into his fifties beardless suddenly change the character
of his face? Is it intended that he also change his persona? Abraham
Lincoln, we all know, grew a beard after his election and before
his inauguration. There are anecdotes about why he did this, but
without endorsing any of them, worshipers are happy to believe that
a new — great, legendary — Lincoln was born. I know a
young man who, as of September 12, ceased running a razor down his
face, without exactly formulating the reason. Those who know him
have an additional reason for hoping it will be a short war.
But also we have the advent of a book by Jeffrey Toobin of The
New Yorker, flatly asserting that the election of a year ago
was won by Gore, not Bush. The book is called Too
Close to Call: The Thirty-Six-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election.
Writing in the New York Times on Sunday to reiterate his
findings, Mr. Toobin remarks, with disappointment, the diminished
partisanship of the Democratic party. He cites several examples.
One is the acceptance by the Senate of Theodore Olson as solicitor
general, which he tells us is not the kind of thing Sen. Helms used
to do when he was pivotally situated. He cites apparent Democratic
acquiescence in the next tax bill, advertised as an economic stimulus,
deplored by its critics as extravagantly solicitous to big business.
Now the suggestion here is that because Gore lost the presidency,
his party is disanimated, that the bipartisanship heralded after
September 11 is a kind of lazy capitulation to the fatal miscount
in Florida.
In raising
this point so adamantly, Mr. Toobin is telling us that a series
of decisions made in Florida, together with inanimate Democratic
political behavior, contrasted with ardent Republican-generated
pressures, resulted not merely in an election lost but in democratic
travesty. No one is disposed to doubt that it made a difference
whether the White House was occupied by a Republican or a Democrat.
Of course it makes a difference, if you want a facile way of putting
it, whether the president is more attentive to labor-union leaders
than to business entrepreneurs.
But the point not made here by Mr. Toobin, or in New Hampshire by
Mr. Gore, is that the extraordinary historic challenge before the
country is not affected, at least not yet, by the chance victory
of the Republican over the Democrat. It may be, down the road a
few months or years, that the accommodationist impulses of Democratic
liberals, under a President Gore, would have diminished national
purpose. We do know that Mr. Gore has said that he approves not
only the steps President Bush has taken, but also the strategy he
has set upon.
That acquiescence
was symbolized in that presidential embrace with Sen. Daschle. The
question will forever engage the attention of historians and electoral
technicians — who actually won in Florida? But no one has successfully
pleaded that our foreign policy has been significantly affected
by the outcome. And, come to think of it, indignation over the confirmation
of Theodore Olson hasn't yet been generated. Leading us to wonder
what Mr. Gore will end by telling his party in New Hampshire; and
acknowledging the work of Mr. Toobin not as emergency treatment,
but as post mortem.
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