A disturbing number of Americans are trying desperately to deny reality and live in a four-year state of denial.

Monday, February 05, 2001

A disturbing number of Americans are trying desperately to deny reality and live in a four-year state of denial. Trust me: George W. Bush actually is the president of the United States and, truth be told, he actually was elected legally. As the newly elected president, George W. Bush deserves respect due his office and cooperation necessary for this nation to be governed successfully; not only fair game for critical evaluation of his effectiveness, he needs loyal opposition in order to be effective.

During the last month I have overheard street-level remarks that would be simply silly if not so idiotic, e.g.: "I hope he catches pneumonia and dies!" – "I hope the Democrats don’t let him do anything he wants!" – "I hope they don’t let him have anyone he wants!" Such is first class cutting a political nose off despite the nation’s face.

A popular complaint is "he stole the election!" They swallowed disgruntled Al Gore’s tortured semantics, e.g., invalid ballots called "under-vote" – Gore’s wish called "voter intent"- authorized completion of absentee ballot applications called "tampering with ballots" – selective revalidation of favorable votes called "recount." To call an election stolen would require subversion or at least circumvention of the law – which is precisely what Gore attempted, while Bush’s greatest offense was to insist that the rule of law prevails.

You know Al Gore is about to pontificate yet another of his snobbish remarks when he lifts his chin and turns his head slightly to the right. In this posture, he said through his turned-up nose: "I should not think Gov. Bush would want to become president on such a slim margin" (in electoral votes). But he was anxious to do it with less of a margin in the "popular vote" than Bush received in the electoral vote. Gore won the popular vote only narrowly, which would not have given him the "mandate" he correctly charges Bush lacks. The percentage of the margin of Gore over Bush was 1/500th of 1 percent of the popular vote.

I allow that it "doesn’t seem right" a candidate should lose the popular vote and yet be elected. If the election had been decided by this vote alone, Gore would have become president when more citizens voted against him than for him, i.e., a "minority president."

I allow that it "doesn’t seem right" a candidate should lose the popular vote and be elected alone on the basis of the electoral vote. Nonetheless, this is the law and has always been the law. If it should be demonstrated to be an ill-conceived law, it must nonetheless be obeyed until legislatively changed.

Does it seem fair, for instance, for Bush to be elected president with only 48 percent – a minority – of the popular vote? Not only would Gore have been so elected, Bill Clinton received on his election to office even less, i.e., 43 percent.

Does it seem fair that Bush should have won with an electoral vote of only 271-267? If the 2000 census had been used, Bush would have won 278-259.

Gore claimed if more Miami-Dade ballots had been allowed, he would have gained 600 additional votes. An under-reported newspaper survey reveals that he would have picked up not one additional vote, but that Bush would have gained six.

My guess is that the candidates are also about tied on the number of people who voted for them without much enthusiasm or confidence. If Gore had won, it would have been by as narrow a margin as the one by which Bush did win.

This less-than-ideal situation notwithstanding, George Bush is in fact president for at least four years. Any president deserves respect and cooperation, but Bush needs – as Bill Clinton needed and Gore would have needed – critical evaluation of his performance and feed-back from citizens. Finally, it is in the best interests of the nation that everyone works together to make his administration successful.

Wallace Alcorn’s column appears Mondays