FLASHBACK: The Media’s Nasty Attacks on Florida’s Katherine Harris
Twenty-three years ago, the liberal media unleashed their full fury on Florida’s Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, for following the election laws of her state as well as various court rulings to certify George W. Bush as the winner of her state’s electoral votes in the disputed 2000 presidential election.
During the recount drama, the national media pushed a two-track strategy: attempt to bully Harris into using her office to aid Democratic nominee Al Gore; or, failing that, to discredit her as a mere partisan helping a fellow Republican block a full accounting of Florida’s votes.
On election night (November 7), all three broadcast networks had declared Bush the winner, only to retract their declaration when it became clear that the vote margin in Florida was barely 500 votes — a minuscule number in a state which cast more than 5.8 million ballots.
The Gore campaign asked for recounts in just four heavily-Democratic counties, hoping to salvage enough additional votes to put themselves over the top. As both sides went to court, the legal deadline for county election officials to submit their final tallies — November 14, 2000 — neared. The Gore campaign could continue their court challenges after certification, but did not want their candidate to be seen as a sore loser fighting against official results.
So the national media went to work trying to push Harris to delay certification for as long as possible.
Do you think, and to use a rather crude term, that her decision does not pass the smell test? NBC’s Matt Lauer teed up a top Gore campaign official, William Daley, the next morning (November 14) on Today.
The Florida Supreme Court (dominated by Democrats) pushed the deadline to November 26, to give counties more time to execute their recounts. The media kept up their campaign to paint Harris as a villain.
The media pundits had their turn. She’s a partisan player and proud of it, Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift proclaimed on the McLaughlin Group.
In the November 18 Washington Post, Style columnist Robin Givhan launched an ad hominem attack at Harris’s makeup.
Writing in Time magazine (November 27 cover date), Margaret Carlson slashed: The only person who looks like a character from one of the more usual cable dramas is Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Bush campaign co-chairwoman who mixed the pious certitude of Linda Tripp with the hauteur of a Dynasty protagonist….Until the Florida Supreme Court enjoined her from certifying the vote, Harris, often compared to Cruella de Vil, snatching ballots rather than puppies, was briefly the most powerful woman on the planet.
In a twist, future MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell rode to Harris’s defense. She’s been following the law very carefully and scrupulously, he announced on the McLaughlin Group.
On November 26, the new deadline set by the Florida Supreme Court, Bush still led in the tally, so Harris fulfilled her duty and certified the results. In a CBS News Special Report that night, anchor Dan Rather went to preposterous lengths to insist the certification was only as Harris sees it and decrees it.
While that was the beginning of the end for Gore’s challenge, the two campaigns slugged it out in court for another two weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled against further recounts. Late-night hosts, however, continued to take nasty potshots at Harris.
For liberals who condemned Harris for somehow abusing her office, a media recount in 2001 was a shock of cold water.
But the final word went to Harris, who accepted the Sore Losers Award on behalf of CBS’s Rather and his November 26, 2000 sees it and decrees it absurdity.
Some of you may know me only as Cruella de Vil, Harris told hundreds of MRC supporters on January 17, 2002, or the partisan hack, or perhaps even the lackey of the Bush brothers who single-handedly ‘stole’ the election by taking the inflexible, unfair, outrageous position that the rule of law actually mattered: that the law said what it said, and not what Dan Rather deemed it, or wished it to say.
Here’s the video of the entire presentation with Harris’s full remarks.
For more examples from our flashback series, go here.
