The head and subhead in today’s Wall Street Journal say it all — or most of it, anyway — regarding what is likely to be the final, last, never-again, spare-us-before-we-blow-our-brains-out recount of the Florida presidential ballots.

"In Election Review, Bush Wins without Supreme Court Help," the head proclaims, a statement that, though accurate, doesn’t come close to getting at the truth unless it’s read in tandem with this: "Still, Majority of State Voters Would Have Picked Gore but for Poor Ballot Design."

In fact, today’s news accounts of the 10-month, $900,000 recount — performed by a consortium of media organizations led by the Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and CNN — go out of their way to draw a smiley face on what happened in Florida.

The accounts emphasize two facts, both of which leave George W. Bush’s legitimacy intact:

1) Bush would have beaten Al Gore if the statewide recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court hadn’t been halted by the US Supreme Court — which, as we all know, simply shut down the proceedings and handed the election to Bush for reasons that the justices have never adequately explained.

2) Bush would also have won if Gore had gotten his way in four predominantly Democratic counties where his campaign had pushed especially hard for a recount.

Now, these revelations are not unimportant, since they make it extremely unlikely — given the actual process that was being pursued — that the outcome could have been anything other than a narrow Bush win. Even Gore supporters should take some heart in that, since a serious question of legitimacy right now would hamper efforts to deal with the terrorism crisis.

But there’s the pesky matter of the subhead to deal with. Because the truth is that if the standard in Florida had been fairness, rather than whose legal maneuvering would carry the day, then Gore would have won. And, as president, he would have more legitimacy than Bush, because not only did the clear intent of Florida voters favor Gore, but he did, after all, win the nationwide election by some 500,000 votes.

First, consider the ballots that were actually cast and that could have been counted had anyone bothered to do so. The Florida Supremes ordered only that the 61,000 statewide ballots on which no vote could be discerned be re-examined. If that had happened, the consortium found, Bush would have won by 493 votes — just slightly less than his official 537-vote margin. But the consortium also found that if the 114,000 ballots recorded for two or more candidates had been counted, Gore would have won by somewhere between 60 and 171 votes.

Now, it’s become something of an urban legend that Gore never sought such a recount, so, therefore, it’s his fault that he lost (never mind that elections belong to us, not the candidates). But that ignores the fact that, in a nationwide address several days after the election, Gore called for precisely such a statewide recount. If Bush had accepted Gore’s call, can there be any doubt that it would have happened? It was only after Gore was turned down that he chose to pursue a more narrow strategy in the courts.

The second scenario is even more disadvantageous to Bush, and that is what is hinted at in the Journal’s subhead. If not for a confluence of factors — poor ballot design, confusion among voters, and a ballot-rejection rate in African-American neighborhoods that was nearly three times higher than in white ones — Gore would have won, and not by some wussy 100-vote margin, either.

Today’s New York Times, for instance, reports that of the 113,000 ballots cast for two or more candidates, 75,000 were marked for Gore and another candidate and 29,000 were marked for Bush and another candidate. {http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/politics/12VOTE.html} Obviously such votes can’t be counted, but if they could, there’s a 46,000-vote margin right there. Note to conspiracy theorists: that’s why the media’s first exit polls showed Florida going decisively for Gore.

The Washington Post found that Gore may have lost 8000 votes in Palm Beach County, home of the infamous butterfly ballots, and another 7000 in Duval County, where similar ballot confusion reigned. {http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12623-2001Nov11.html}

And these scenarios don’t even begin to address such imponderables as the number of African-American voters who were turned away at the polls because they had mistakenly been deemed felons. (See " Don’t Quote Me, " News and Features, December 22, 2000. {http://boston-dev.wfnx.net/archive/features/00/12/21/DON_T_QUOTE_ME.html}

George W. Bush is the president. No one except maybe a few nuts would suggest that he be stripped of office in favor of Al Gore. But it’s not sour grapes to point out the obvious — that Gore, not Bush, should be president. Rather, it’s simply an unwillingness to be lied to.

Here’s something ominous for Bush to consider, as reported by the Washington Post. A Gallup poll taken this month shows that voters today would favor Bush over Gore by a margin of 61 percent to 35 percent; five weeks before the terrorist attacks, the margin was (no surprise) 48 percent to 48 percent. Yet the Post also reports that, even as of this week, 47 percent believe Bush won the presidency " on a technicality " or that he " stole the election " — a percentage that has barely budged since last December.

Inevitably, as the war against terrorism bogs down and the public begins to question the Bush administration’s tactics and goals, the matter of his legitimacy will become an issue once again.

When the story broke Sunday evening, Bush, as is his custom, sent his preening, oleaginous press secretary, Ari Fleischer, to disparage the media consortium’s hard, careful work. What the president should do, at this moment of rare national unity, is address the nation from the Oval Office about the peculiar circumstances of his election, and outline a package of reforms to ensure that nothing like it happens again.