So, did George W. Bush really win the presidency? Or was Al Gore cheated out of his rightful victory in Florida? In the post–September 11 world, the contested 2000 election seems like a dusty historical artifact. Bush has, for the most part, been reassuringly steady in the early days of the war on terrorism. And Gore himself recently said, "We are united behind our President Bush."

But the truth — especially about something as important as a presidential election — has intrinsic value. Which is why it’s distressing to learn that the media consortium recounting the Florida ballots (the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and CNN, among others) has put its million-dollar-plus project on hold.

The recount was suspended with little comment in the media. Eric Boehlert recently wrote a detailed piece for Salon in which he suggested that the consortium members were spooked by the notion of undermining the commander-in-chief at a time of national crisis; but there’s been damn little elsewhere. London’s Guardian ran a piece this week in which the participating news organizations offered conflicting comments regarding the fate of the recount. "Our belief is that the priorities of the country have changed, and our priorities have changed," said Journal spokesman Steven Goldstein; Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said the process had merely been postponed, adding, "The intention is to go forward."

That’s what should happen. Not only because the public has a right to know who might have won in Florida had the US Supreme Court not stopped the ballots from being counted, but because the consortium’s decision to pull back is already feeding conspiracy theories.

Take, for instance, a series of articles by David Podvin, who writes for the Web site makethemaccountable.com, and who is described by the Guardian as an "investigative journalist." Podvin claims that the consortium stopped its recount because it learned that Gore had "decisively won the state," citing as his source "a former media executive who previously revealed information that the Bush administration was lying about Clinton staffers having vandalized the White House." Sounds plausible unless you read further. It seems that, according to what this executive told Podvin, "the de facto majority shareholders in the publicly traded New York Times Company reportedly intervened on the side of quashing the recount results and convinced the other participants to shelve the story."

There’s more, much more, and never mind that this particular conspiracy theory is based on a falsehood: though the Times Company is publicly traded, voting control remains with the Sulzberger family, who enjoy a well-deserved reputation for journalistic integrity. Besides, both Salon and the Guardian report that the consortium members to date have no clue as to what the contested ballots show.

Neither, of course, do we. And that’s a problem.

Bush is the president. That’s not going to change. But the mess in Florida was an ugly episode. Bush entered the White House despite having lost the popular vote nationwide by some 500,000 ballots, and despite no one’s having any real idea who won Florida. It’s important that the record be set straight, if only to reduce the chance of such a thing happening again.

Issue Date: October 25 - November 1, 2001