Through the Looking Glass

Those who yearn for finality in the Florida presidential voting controversy will have to wait a while longer, perhaps quite a while. The Sunday evening deadline set by the state Supreme Court for manual ballot recounts in three counties seems unlikely to be the final act in a drama that increasingly has taken on aspects of farce.

This isn’t to deny that what is at issue--the presidency--is of momentous importance. But by now most people surely are fed up with the endless frantic litigating and mind-numbing partisan balderdash that accompany the process of slogging toward that ultimate decision. It is “Alice in Wonderland” as reinterpreted by the crew of “Saturday Night Live.” Only it’s not very funny and the stakes are all too real.

The twists and turns in this story come with increasing rapidity. George W. Bush’s side asked the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday to overturn Tuesday night’s decision by the Florida Supreme Court. Federal courts are traditionally reluctant to second-guess state courts in voting matters, but given everything else that has happened it would be foolish to rule out that possibility. It further appears that Al Gore won’t pick up any additional votes in Miami-Dade County because officials there have said “Enough of this” and stopped recounting ballots. An effort by the vice president to get that decision overruled was shot down Wednesday; an appeal is planned. In addition, Gore seemed to win a victory Wednesday when a judge told Palm Beach County officials that they could accept dimpled ballots, but the ruling was so conditioned that by the end of the day it was being seen as a loss for his campaign.

Meanwhile, hours after the Bush campaign said Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney was hospitalized but fine, his doctors disclosed he had suffered a slight heart attack. The attack and Cheney’s history of heart problems raise the possibility that Bush might have to replace the former Defense secretary on the GOP ticket sometime before Dec. 18, when the electoral college meets. Who waits in the wings? Colin Powell? John McCain? Katherine Harris?

Bush and Gore each genuinely believes that he has won Florida and with it the presidency. When a final decision will be made is anyone’s guess, and what might happen before then is something perhaps best not pondered on this pleasant Thanksgiving weekend.