11/10/00 5:15 p.m.
Impeachment II (Times Two)
The Florida fallout.

Robert A. George is an editorial page writer
for the New York Post------------------------------------RAGGEDmail@aol.com

on't you just wish the producers of Saturday Night Live had cameras in Al Gore's car and George W. Bush's governor's mansion on Election Night/Wednesday morning? The conversation that has been reported between the two men as Gore rescinded his concession would have been better than any of the SNL skits this year.

Each man played to his stereotype. Gore: "Don't get snippy." (Why do I think that one's going to end up in a future William Safire "On Language" column?) Bush saying, in effect, "Well, my brother said the vote's accurate." Gore: "You're younger brother's not the ultimate authority on this."

Well, one thing that this election has changed: Al Gore recognizes that there is a "controlling legal authority" governing some things.

On Wednesday, Al Gore asked the country not to "rush to judgment." When was the last time we heard that phrase? Of course, it was two years ago when the focus was on Bill Clinton.

Thus the legacy of the first elected president to be impeached is a campaign that has devolved into Impeachment II — Times Two.

It's clear that the Democrats are using the tactics mastered defensively to combat the impeachment process now in an offensive manner to win this election. Back then they declared that the Republican Congress was "rushing to judgment" in wanting to hold President Clinton constitutionally accountable.

Of course, ironies abound: Back then Democrats tried to derail impeachment by saying that Republicans wanted to overthrow a twice-elected president. Today, many of these same voices want to use the legal process to overturn either a county or state result. But, hey, who said Democrats had to be consistent?

While there are many aspects to this that are quite amusing, neither conservatives or Republicans should ignore the other impeachment similarity in this fiasco. It is particularly perilous for George W. Bush.

It's become blatantly clear that the back-up plan for Gore and the Democrats if they don't get a new election is the "impeachment" of George W. Bush before he is even inaugurated. Republicans can well remember how the press helped to crucify incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich in December 1994 - before he had been sworn in as speaker. Newsweek called him "The Gingrich Who Stole Christmas"; Time's take was portraying him as Scrooge and asking the question, "How Mean Will Gingrich's Congress Be?" The negative image was immediately imprinted upon the public eye.

What is happening to George W. Bush is similar. This is why the Bush campaign is pushing the "popular vote" winner line. (Funny, that they don't mind "rushing to judgment" on declaring themselves the winner of the most votes nationally — even though there are more than two million absentee ballots yet to be counted.) The move partly depends upon the public's ignorance of the purpose of the Electoral College and appeals to a vague sense of "fairness" that the guy with the most popular votes should win.

But, should Gore fall short of his legal ploys, the image will be branded into everyone's mind that Bush is illegitimate. Gore will — if the numbers hold up — remain the "people's president" while Bush serves as the chief executive of "the elites."

The irony of this is that, in fact, Gore is the one elected by "the elites." As this column noted two weeks ago, George W. Bush will become the first president elected without carrying New York or California. Add Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois and you have the fact that Bush lost five of the eight most populace states. Gore is the candidate of the homes of both Hollywood and Wall Street. With the media as a willing ally Gore — if he chooses to end his campaign in a relatively dignified manner in the next week or so — will create the American equivalent of a parliamentary system. He can prepare a government-in-waiting. As the "popular" president, he will be readily be called upon to critique the Bush administration (following an "appropriate" fake honeymoon period.

Congressional Democrats will have no inclination to work in a bipartisan fashion with Republicans. They will attempt to make the "uniter" as weak as possible. And, if all goes well for them, the economy will slow in late 2001 or early 2002. Democrats will say, "See, you got a unified Republican government and look what it did for you — ended the longest peacetime expansion in American history." Democrats will be then well-placed to knock off a few congressional Republicans in 2002 and prepare the way for the return of the people's rightful president, Prince Albert II.

A frightful scenario to be sure. But it's one that certainly could happen. However, Gore has to be careful. Both the Washington Post and New York Times had somewhat critical editorials, admonishing Gore for threatening legal action. If that occurs, Gore will lose his political viability. But if he presses it just long enough, he will position himself well for 2004 and leave George W. Bush as the America's first pre-impeached president.

And that will be no laughing matter.