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The inside story on Florida recount |
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February 7, 2001
WASHINGTON- (Bangla2000/AP) - The election that wouldn't quit is now begetting at least a half-dozen books recounting the recount and the chaotic Florida flip-flops on Election Night. Reporters and commentators who descended on Palm Beach and Tallahassee or covered the postelection morass from afar are writing books about the 36 days of limbo that followed the Nov. 7 election draw. "It's an irresistible story," said Newsweek writer David Kaplan, a former lawyer and Supreme Court reporter, whose yet-untitled book will be published by William Morrow. "I want to attempt, with a little bit of distance and a little bit of perspective, to tell what really happened." New Yorker contributor and ABC legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin has a book deal with Random House and Salon writer Jake Tapper has signed on with Little, Brown for a book expected out this month. Washington Times reporter Bill Sammon has a deal with Regnery Publishing, known for publishing conservative books and commentary, but he said the book does not spare President George W. Bush's side. "There are things in there critical of Republicans and there are things in there critical of Democrats," Sammon said. His book is due out in the spring. The Washington Post and the Miami Herald are both working on books that pool the work of numerous reporters. The Post ran excerpts from its book as a weeklong serial, with a bound version due this month. CNN analyst Jeff Greenfield signed a deal with Putnam while the recount was still young for a book focusing on how networks called Florida for Al Gore and then retracted the call on Election Night. Several other planned books will focus mostly on the campaign trail, but will likely include some accounts of Election Night and beyond. Lawyers, aides to the candidates and employees and friends of Florida officials in the thick of the recount chaos - including Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris - are cooperating with at least some of the authors. The story everyone wants and no one is likely to get is a behind-the-scenes account of the Supreme Court's decisive involvement. Law clerks and other court staff are bound to secrecy about how the justices negotiate, and current clerks are forbidden to talk to reporters at all. The justices themselves have said nothing publicly about how they reached the 5-4 decision that stopped Florida recounts and effectively decided the election for Bush. Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas, both in the majority, have said since that the court does not make political decisions. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the dissenters, last week called the Bush v. Gore decision a "December storm over the U.S. Supreme Court," but said she is optimistic the judiciary's reputation for independence will not suffer. Although he has interviewed justices on other topics in the past, Newsweek's Kaplan does not expect to talk to them this time. "Justices usually do not talk to reporters (until) many, many years after the event, and I think there is an institutional feeling at the court that the court has been at the center of the vortex," for long enough, Kaplan said. By contrast, some lawyers and others have dished happily about strategy sessions in Washington and Austin, and about the no-sleep and too-much-pizza atmosphere in Tallahassee, a small state capital overrun by lawyers and media. There are accounts of high-priced Washington lawyers poring over statute books at 3 a.m. and tapping out their own briefs on laptops in the hallways of Tallahassee law firms. Gore's lead Florida courtroom lawyer, David Boies, is writing his own memoir, which will also cover other aspects of his career. Boies is also cooperating with a writer for a diary of his year in 2000.
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