Legal Commentary

Today marks the tenth anniversary of Bush v. Gore and the end of the 2000 Presidential Election. As Ann Althouse says, what would it have been like to be a blogger at that time. At Election Law Blog, Rick Hasen has a series of reflections on the case from Lyle Denniston, Heather Gerken, Rick Pildes, and Nate Persily. Edward Foley adds his thoughts. Of course, views on the entire controversy still are colored by politics--compare Eric Alterman with George Will.^* And on a personal note, I enjoy teaching the case in Fed Courts and forcing students to see that there at least purported to be some law going on there.

For now, I want to give a thought on the lasting visual image of this night. As Pildes recalls:

In an image that remains iconic of that night for me, two of NBC's top reporters stood on the steps of the Court, lit up by television lights and framed by the deep-black of a December's night sky, as they took turns reading out loud paragraphs from the Court's decision.

I don't remember if I was watching NBC or another network that night; reporters for all the networks were doing basically the same thing. It all reminded me of watching a bunch of thoroughly unprepared 1Ls who had not done the reading or even thought about what the case might say, had been cold-called, and were trying to bluff their way through it, reading the opinion and answering questions as they went, jumping around from page to page trying to find the key language that would tell them the result and the end-game, and stammering through their answers.

Another reason not to cold call.

    ^* While I share Alterman's political and historical views, I also would point out that Will's commentary closes with a hypothetical that, deliberately or otherwise, completely misstates the meaning of 3 U.S.C. § 5 (the statute the Court cited as grounds for ending the recount).