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MUST SEE TV: “RECOUNT” TONIGHT ON HBO
By Michael B. Brodkorb | May 25, 2008
My TiVo is set to record “Recount” tonight on HBO. If you watch “Recount” in the next few days, please leave a comment on this post.
UPDATE: I’m glad I watched the movie, but it was so-so. It focused too much on Gore’s strategy.
Topics: Uncategorized | 27 Comments »
27 Responses to “MUST SEE TV: “RECOUNT” TONIGHT ON HBO”
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May 25th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
One person who saw it already was Bryan York. He was on Laura Engram’s show. His reaction was to laugh while his wife was upset about the lies. That might give you an idea what’s up.
I have a misguided sister who believes that Al Gore was ripped off the year 2000. I’ll force myself to watch it just to try to counter it with her.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
May 25th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I pay taxes in Minnesota.
I can’t afford HBO.
May 25th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Okay here’s the report. If you haven’t seen it and you want to avoid being upset if you believe that Gore was trying to steal Florida avoid this at all costs. Just count on those of us who tortured ourselfs to watch it to counter it for you.
The writer was shown on a clip that aired just before the movie aired that he went and tried to get everybody’s point of view to tell it fairly. Ha!
I’m going to try to cover the movie in order it aired to make my points.
* A major fault with this movie was that stuff that happened to make it appear that the Republicans (Bush) were victimized or something that will hurt Democrats (Gore) somehow seemed to be not in the movie. A clear way this started was that when you went through the montage of network clips showing that Gore was predicted to be the winner than off the table than Bush something was left out. The networks ignored a warning letter by Katherine Harris (you wouldn’t have known it by watching the movie) not to call Florida until seven central time because part of Florida since it was in the central time zone. The networks ignored the warning and called Florida before seven central time. Barely at the end was it even mentioned, but the point some estitmates were 2000 to 10000 votes for Bush. If the networks had just listened to Harris’ warning we wouldn’t have had the mess.
* Also left out in great detail was the issue of overseas military ballots. Keep in mind Florida created this rule because of an agreement with the Carter Justice Department (surprise that wasn’t mentioned) a Gore person argued it was unfair that Florida was counting them (Um the agreement with Carter’s Justice Department), wow we had dramatic scenes of people who thought their vote wasn’t counted in Palm Beach County, but the Gore camp creating votes being thrown out and upset Bush people. Keep in mind the clip from Libberman which was shown out of order of events in Florida (Libberman on Meet The Press was before the first Florida Supreme Court Ruling) was a response to the Republican outrage from the day before when the votes were counted or kicked out (odd every vote was suppose to be counted except for military people). Keep in mind something about these votes the votes the Bush team restored after the first Florida Supreme Court ruling was what kept Bush ahead after the second Florida Supreme Court ruling (ironic the discussion that the Gore legal team had to challenge them which Gore didn’t order wasn’t shown).
* Another fault was how the US Supreme Court wasn’t shown in it’s full detail. You couldn’t tell if you watched the movie that there were “Two” cases in front of the US Supreme Court. The first one was a 9-0 decision telling the Florida State Supreme Court they were wrong. Keep in mind for those people who got the impression that US Supreme Court shouldn’t have been involved had already ruled. One reason they had that dissenting opinion shown for the second case by the Florida State Supreme Court judge was be he correctly predicted they were going to be spanked again by the US Supreme Court. One thing I will say positive about this movie was that the movie unlike a lot of people correctly pointed out that there were two decisions and on the key decision the vote was 7-2. A lot of people remember the 5-4 remedy decision (the second) and think that was the vote.
* The movie doesn’t fairly deal with the fact that a dimple ballot means that somebody was wanting to vote for Gore. For those Republicans this year who will vote a straight party line ballot bellow John Mccain and don’t know how they will vote for President can understand somebody begining to punch for Gore and not voting for him. So a dimple isn’t intent even though the Democrats want you to believe it.
* Palm Beach county did complete a recount contrary to the movie. They just didn’t get Gore enough votes. Thus that’s why Gore was asking for another recount using a different standard! Note a very important point here Miami Dade County made the decision unamiously to call off their recount because they felt they couldn’t meet the Florida State Supreme Court’s deadline. Palm Beach County which had basically the same number of votes didn’t meet it. In part because their board of election people took Thanksgiving off. One of the counties their election board worked on Thanksgiving Day and met the deadline. Furthermore it has been shown that some of the ballots of Palm Beach County were decided by people than the three member panel (odd not in the movie).
* The movie barely mentioned two legal points that favored Bush by December 12th the day for the electoral college to meet and vote for President. Katherine Harris had already offically certified the election for George Bush on November 26th and Congress had the piece of paper for that. Also under the constitution the Florida legislators had already voted and said the votes were going to George Bush.
I can go on, but you can see it was deliberative attempt to show that Gore won and was ignoring the facts that happened.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
May 25th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Walter: Thanks for the comments.
May 25th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Minnesota Democrats Exposed (MDE)/Michael B. Brodkorb (MBB) writes that the movie, Recount, on Home Box Office (HBO) is a “must see.”
Walter writes that he is going to force himself to watch Recount [HBO].
After reading Patriot’s woes, I wonder if Walter gets help paying his Minnesota taxes.
Do you think that The Hot Half-Dozen II, might occasionally take a look at HBO?
May 25th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Walter: Gracias for the comments.
May 25th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
El: You are welcomed to leave a comment specifically reacting to my posts. But your comments frequently have nothing to do with my posts. Please refrain from leaving comments unrelated to my posts.
May 26th, 2008 at 12:21 am
I’ll work on writing the transitions with more clarity so that they flow more smoothly. Perhaps they seem a little opaque in that I sometimes I link a previous post that may have happened a couple of days ago.
I found it somewhat ironic that MDE indirectly plugged Home Box Office (HBO), after recently giving space(s) to a rather lengthy letter signed by a half-dozen women who wrote about their disdain for certain aspects of American modern culture.
I would suspect that at least some of the movies on HBO might be examples of what the half-dozen women are writing against according to some of their sentences.
I found the comments by Patriot: “I pay taxes in Minnesota. I can’t afford HBO.” to probably be par for MDE.
However, I found irony in the fact that Walter (a Minnesotan) could afford HBO and was going to “counter” his “misguided sister,” who might have also had HBO [address unknown], although Walter didn’t write that.
May 26th, 2008 at 12:52 am
El Presidente:
* My sister does have HBO and part of the reason why I was going to force myself to watch it was that we had a fight a couple of days ago where she said it was a “Fact” that Gore was cheated on Florida.
* One reason why I have HBO is that I have some roommates and we share the cable costs. So if I was to pay by myself I might not have HBO.
I hope that help explains me.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
May 26th, 2008 at 3:24 am
That explains your HBO situation to me.
I don’t have cable; I watch the cable news programs at my Aunt’s house occasionally.
May 26th, 2008 at 10:16 am
It’s really quite amazing that Al Gore attempted to have military votes excluded, and then attempted to focus recounts only on Gore friendly counties… and yet, somehow the Left has succeeded in planting the myth that Bush disenfranchised voters.
And still, Bush has been repeatedly and legitimately been found to have won Florida.
May 26th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
its really quite amazing to me how the Constitution specifically talks about the seperation of powers and that is what our government is based on. But the Judicial branch elected our president in 2000, not only that but Bush was elected, by the Supreme Courts, across completely partisan lines.
if that is not a slap in the face of the Constitution, I don’t know what is. I guess it helps to have your BROTHER the governor of the state where the controversy was. unfucking believable.
May 26th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
One thing about Walter – he has his facts right, as usual.
May 26th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
The fact that the movie focused far more attention on Gore’s efforts to stall the inevitable, and the way the movie glossed over the dimpled “intent” issue didn’t bug me too much. But then I didn’t have high expectations for the movie despite HBO’s claims it would be as accurate as humanly possible. The fact that so many actors were “dying” to be a part of it was the writing on the wall for me.
What did disappoint me (and if I missed it by all means let me know) was the end of the movie. Especially with the focus so much on Gore, it seems it would have only been fair to point out at the end of the movie that Bush did in fact win the recount as prescribed by the Florida Supreme Court.
Instead, the film leaves the viewer with the impression that the only reason Gore lost was because of the Supreme Court and a lack of time.
How hard would it have been to place, in text by way of summarizing events following, “In 2001, a Miami Herald and USA Today study concluded not only that George W. Bush would have won the Florida Supreme Court prescribed recount, he would have increased his lead by over 1,000 votes.”
Simple, accurate, and germane.
At one point in the movie, Kevin Spacey’s character (he was excellent in the movie) said he just wanted to know who won the election. Well, we do know. HBO could have informed people of the result, and chose not to. Seems like an awfully important detail to leave out of a movie about “who won.”
May 27th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Yoni:
The people in the state of Florida by a margin of 537 votes decided that George Bush carried the state of Florida. That margin would’ve been bigger if the networks hadn’t called Florida while people were still voting.
That margin would’ve been bigger if Democrats in an effort to help Gore be elected President wasn’t deliberately getting the votes of the military thrown out.
What the US Supreme Court decided since the Florida State Supreme Court was on Gore’s side was that the votes should’ve been counted with one standard (oh it’s amazing that movie failed to mention the media recounts where Bush did win anyway). Furthermore Yoni the state legislature of Florida (elected by the people and not the courts confirmed this). In the year 2002 when the Democrats were out for blood the people showed their displeasure by reelecting Jeb Bush and the Florida legislature.
The people of Florida spoke very loud and clear. You just don’t like the fact that they said George Bush in 2000!
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
May 27th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Yoni:
A couple more points to go over.
If you didn’t remember the day after the election in 2000 Jeb Bush held a press conference where he stepped aside and recused himself completely of the situation because he had a conflict of interest (odd that scene wasn’t in the movie).
If you really want to complain about the courts giving the election to George Bush you might want to place the blame on the Florida State Supreme Court Yoni. I have always said that they turned out to be Gore’s worst enemy in his effort to win Florida. The movie glossed over it but they did four big items of damage to Gore:
One, they gave Bush’s legal team the excuse to go and get some military ballots restored. As I pointed out in an earlier post it was these votes that kept Bush in the lead when the Florida State Supreme Court laid down it’s second ruling. Gore never had a point where he had the lead. This unexpected gift to the Bush legal team is why Gore isn’t President today.
And note the movie didn’t show any discussion for the second case of do you ask for those votes to be removed. There were people in the Gore camp arguing they should ask for those votes not to count even though their public position was that every vote should count.
Two, Gore desperately wanted Miami Dade County to be recounted. What got Miami Dade county to call off their recount? They thought they couldn’t complete a recount in time to meet the deadline given by the Florida State Supreme Court. Remember they imposed the new deadline! Not Katherine Harris! Not the US Supreme Court which hadn’t even held a hearing yet on the case.
Three, their actions were to ignore the US Supreme Court. Now with Bush having been certified the winner and if the Florida State Supreme Court had upheld the ruling that Gore lost his lawsuit you wouldn’t have had any US Supreme Court involvement again. Their second ruling (which their Chief Justice in dissenting predected they were going to be spanked) was the equivalent of a bull fighter waving his cape to get the bull to charge. The Florida State Supreme Court invited the US Supreme Court to suspend the very late recount. Oh it did happen anyway by the media and Gore lost if you didn’t hear!
And a fourth point, is they didn’t allow Katherine Harris to certify on Saturday November 18, 2000. Gore could have filed his lawsuit on Monday November 20, 2000 and asked the hearing be delayed so that the three counties that were in process of conducting recounts will have time to complete them for the trial. On November 20, 2000 those counties would’ve saw that if they completed it their data would’ve been available for trial. If you assume trial was on November 27 (the day Gore filed the suit which you saw filed on the movie) that was when Palm Beach county finally finished. That would’ve been a date that Miami Dade County would’ve finished a complete recount (not a partial false number which the Gore legal team successfully used) The Bush legal team would’ve also had a week to prepare. Something not mentioned in the movie was that the Bush legal team had time which the Florida legislature set aside in a carefully designed time frame to contest an election taken away from them to prepare their case.
Furthermore Yoni it wasn’t shown in the movie but the Gore legal team called just two witnesses in that trial to try to make their point. You got a better case made by the HBO movie in 2008 for challening the election than the Gore team presented in 2000.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
May 27th, 2008 at 8:55 am
The fact is that, almost 8 years ago, Al Gore was the one who tried to steal the election. All recounts have confirmed this. Even the NY Times has admitted this.
And the one who started using the Courts was Gore. Not Bush. Bush only reacted to Gore’s tactics, which was to have his buddies on the Florida Supreme Court cherry-pick the votes and make up rules as they went along.
May 27th, 2008 at 9:02 am
I think most political hacks will enjoy the movie, but will probalby share a different perspective pending on your party preference. Clearly, the movie could be used as a lighting rod for both sides to revisit the 2000 election, but the bigger message here is simple – every vote counts and the system has some flaws. As Minnesotans, we ought be more concerned with our same day voter registration and the large turn out that we historically generate on election day. The current system is an invatation for outside groups to commit voter fraud and influence the outcome of a tight race. If you are a political hack – this is a must see…..
May 27th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Just the fact that Hollywood would produce this movie is hilarious. “RECOUNT” very grim.
May 27th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Walter
thank you for not calling me a dumb bitch anywhere in your response.
I read your response carefully and it does seem reasonable to me.
as a general tip, Walter, with facts, helped to sway my decision. something that is harder to do when instead of an explanation I am just called dumb or accused of being a supporter of terrorism.
May 27th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Yoni:
Thank you for your polite response. If you want to show where your talk about language is for real you owe a public apology on this website to Jeb Bush and the US Supreme Court. If you read your post #12 you implied that Jeb Bush must have done something (assuming illegal) that gave the state of Florida to George Bush when he clearly had stepped aside.
You also went and accused the US Supreme Court of giving the election and casting the deciding votes. As the evidence clearly showed by the time they already had involvement that George Bush had won the election.
You can make a claim that they unfairly ran the clock out on Al Gore, but when they issued the order on December 9, 2000 it already been 32 days since election day. You had more than enough time to have conducted a complete recount of the state of Florida if it had been asked for.
Keep in mind Yoni I’m a Republican who didn’t want Al Gore to be elected president, but if he asked on November 8, 2000 for a complete recount a lot of Republicans like me would’ve supported a recount. You did see in the movie that the decision was made not to ask for a recount by the Gore team. They had the responsibility to ask for it. Not the US Supreme Court. Why should they pay for the Gore team’s mistake?
Instead what did we get? Selected recounts for counties where Al Gore can gain votes. Even though they publically state all votes should count went out and on purpose tried to get every military overseas ballot thrown out that they could even though their ballots had clear intentions unlike Palm Beach County dimple ballots.
Furthermore Yoni we had this bizarre recount on December 9, 2000 because the Florida State Supreme Court ordered it. Why didn’t they issue a court order which the Gore legal camped that asked for Miami Dade County to finish their recount (oh another thing the movie forgot to mention). Or better since on their own they had stopped Katherine Harris from certifying the election why didn’t they order a complete recount? They could’ve easily ordered a complete recount, but never did. In part because they weren’t asked for it by “Either” legal side in this dispute.
I look forward to your apology to both the US Supreme Court and Jeb Bush.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
May 27th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Boy I thought I’ve been typing in a line “Not mentioned in the movie” If I counted my comments on posts right I think I’m at ten very important points that somehow got missed out in the movie.
Wow compare that with a claim by the writer that he was trying to be fair and tell the whole story. To the best of my knowledge not one fact that the Gore side would’ve wanted presented wasn’t presented. Maybe one of those liberals who think the election was stolen can point out what facts that helped Al Gore were left out of the movie.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
May 28th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has apparently covered a lot of things in his recently released book.
From the early partial reviews that I have read, I haven’t seen any mention of the Bush-Gore Presidential Election.
May 28th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Walter, Boy Blunder stole that election fair and square.
Deal with it.
May 28th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Tommy:
Al Gore was the person who was trying to steal the election and didn’t do it. You’re the person who needs to deal with it!!!!!
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
May 28th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Tommy:
Two silly questions:
One, so we can have a debate can you name one way that Bush cheated if you’re so confident that Bush cheated?
And two, are you being honest about your identity. The term boy blunder comes from somebody who I believe calls himself twoput Tommy. It seems like if you can’t be honest about who you are than your claim about Bush cheating to win Florida is a joke?
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
May 29th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Okay folks it looks like this Tommy Johnson who I believe is Two Putt Tommy has decided to offer no evidence at all Bush tried to steal the election.
We can conclude the following:
One, Gore tried to steal Florida not Bush.
Two, Tommy Johnson is a coward and doesn’t want to argue want he claims is fact.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN