I'm Depressed [UPDATED]
Normally I would save reaction to a film for the next Media Monday. However, my response here is not so much about the merits of the film . After studiously avoiding seeing the HBO movie The Recount (about the FL 2000 election), my brother - apparently something of a familial sadist - told me I should watch it. So I did, late last night.

It was painful, painful, painful. Gore won Florida in 2000 - not by much, but he did. And somehow we let the other guy get sworn in. We should have made more noise, caused more trouble, and made it much more difficult for that to happen. I know if the shoe was on the other foot, the other party would have brought the country to a standstill.

And now look where we are.

My experience re-living that horror (mostly in something of a whiny fetal position on the couch) left me with 3 questions resonating through the accumulated last 8 years.

1) How could Democrats have been so inattentive to the awful, even criminal mismanagement of elections that was happening right under their noses in that state - from the ridiculous ballots and machinery to the wrongful purging of 20,000 voters from the rolls just for having names *similar* to felons? And why did these failures not result in a major overhaul of election law and procedure?

2) Given the dubious election thrust not only an illegitimate presidency on us, but - as was almost immediately clear - one of the most incompetent failing presidencies of all time, how the hell did we not soundly right that wrong in 2004? How the hell did Kerry lose? And especially how did he lose Florida?

3) Since the Nader vote in either New Mexico or Florida would have delivered the presidency to Gore, how do 2000 Nader voters in those 2 states live with themselves?

Ok, while I'm at it, 4) How did the fact that Gore won the popular vote end up fading away so uncontroversially? There was never the slightest effort the next year to undo the Electoral College, even as it awarded the presidency to the candidate who got fewer votes, here in a supposedly one-person, one-vote democracy. I understand the arguments for continuing the Electoral College, but nobody even seriously brings up changing it so we can debate the relative merits? I seem to remember after 2000 everyone assuming it would be one of those inevitable groundswell debates, but it just never happened. Don't you know that if Obama becomes President through the Electoral College but loses the popular vote to McCain that Republicans will first contest that result with all they've got (and probably win a few votes in the Supreme Court), then brand Obama as illegitimate *every week for 4 years*, will attach anti-EC legislation to everything until they win, and then will hammer home that Americans really didn't vote for Obama through the entire 2012 election until they defeat him.

We just don't fight like them. Sometimes I'm proud of that, but watching Recount doesn't help with that sense.

If anyone can help my psyche with some salving answers to those questions, I'd appreciate it. In the meantime, and until then, I can't recommend Recount.

[UPDATE: This makes me feel a little bit better, but only a little.]