HOW AMERICA STRUGGLED TO PICK A PRESIDENT

First it had looked like Gore. Then Bush. Finally neither. The day after election day dawned trembling, like a hangover. Our choosing of the president of the United States, it seemed, had gone south -- to Florida. But Florida could not decide.

The third day came, filled with doubt, recrimination, anger. Recounting began. Butterfly ballots, undervotes, safe harbor, overseas absentees -- the deadlock quickly produced its own lexicon. We learned about chad, dimpled, dangling and pregnant. The fourth day. Then the fifth. Legal threats turned into lawsuits.

For weeks the United States of America struggled to decide, in the counting rooms and in the courts, whom it had elected to the highest office in the land. Television rattled nightly with analysis and spin. A cast of soon-to-be-familiar players pushed the drama along. Harris, Christopher, Baker. Sauls, Scalia and Jeb.

The world watched, curious and bemused. The leading democracy on Earth had become a laughingstock, hauling ballots up and down the Florida turnpike in a rented Ryder truck. The largest decision this nation makes, every four years, hung there in terrible suspension. Sometimes it seemed like farce. Sometimes it seemed like history, a raw and brutal play for power.

Now it came down to the lawyers. They battled in Florida. They battled on TV. They battled in the Supreme Court of the United States. Then again on TV. Back in the Supreme Court. To and fro the fighting went, until the highest court in the land, by the slimmest of margins, came to a decision the effect of which gave the prize to George W. Bush. By the 37th day, America had decided.