The inauguration is over, and a new millennium begins. Lots of attention and fanfare accompanied the event and even more is filling the op-ed pages with opinions and commentary about the opening act of the new presidency.
But before moving on, I would like to comment on an event that took place two weeks earlier that was all but ignored by most of the media as an event of mere circumstance, as indeed it usually is.
The last act of the most disputed election in modern history took place on Capital Hill at the joint session of congress for the certification of the Electoral College vote. Normally this is a boring and formal ceremony during which a member from each state reads the results of that state in that legalese language that will either put you right to sleep or have you begging for the telecomando (remote control). After each reading, the president of the Senate asks if there are any objections, which, of course, there never are. And so the ceremony continues its repetitious ritual until one by one every state has read its results.
This year, however, the ceremony was anything but boring, even though there wasn't much coverage of the event. I watched it on C-Span, the cable station that transmits such public and political events, allowing us to witness the inside of government activities without the filter of the media.
What an ironic instance of poetic injustice: to be called upon to pound the last nail into your own coffin. Yet that is the twist of fate that awaited Al Gore when according to the dictate of protocol, he signed, sealed, and delivered the results that awarded the presidency to his opponent.
At the beginning of the session, with less than a third of the House members present and less than half of the Senate, Representative Peter Deutsch (D-FL) tried to close down the session for a lack of quorum. Then, he tried to make a declaration in recognition of the still existing resentment for what had happened in Florida. "There are many Americans who still believe…." but his words were drowned out by an uproar of protests from Republicans present in the hall. He tried once again and once again he was drowned into silence. Those who watched with awakened hope would soon discover disappointment. With the paradox that sometimes comes with destiny, it was Al Gore, as president of the Senate, who was forced to use his gavel to silence everyone, including the man who was doing his best to make one last effort for Gore's cause.
Then, the slow process began of reading the count for each state and I was ready to reach for the remote. Thank goodness that my mother insisted on seeing it to the bitter end. Soon they were communicating the count for Florida. After the count was read, awarding the state to George W. Bush as we all know, but before Gore could repeat the question that he had put forward for every other state asking if there were any objections to the certification of that state, the first of many protesters appeared at the podium. Almost all of them were members of the Congressional Black Caucus. All of them had their contestations in writing, as the law prescribes. All had signatures from members of Congress. Not one of them had the signature of a Senator.
Notwithstanding the inutility of their gesture, they presented their objections all the same. And when they had finished, they started all over again. It was moving, though embarrassing, to see these few blacks fighting, however futilely, for something that we should all be fighting for. When Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), reached the podium, he declared in exasperation, "It's a sad day in America when we can't find a senator to sign these objections."
When it came the turn of Maxime Waters (D-Los Angeles), before Gore even had a chance to ask her the same question that he had repeated to everyone else, she answered emphatically, "And I don't care if I don't have the signature of a Senator," with the arrogance of civil disobedience that Henry David Thoreau had preached and Martin Luther King had practiced.
Then, after a pregnant pause, there was a truly unforgettable moment when Gore lost all the rigidity for which we have all been so critical for so long. He rebutted, "You will be advised that the rules do care!" And everyone burst into laughter in a moment that was as bitter as it was sweet. Certainly, anyone who heard him realized at that moment just how much we have lost by not having him as our president.
For the next four years we'll have to grin and bear a president with a much less modest sense of self. We have already witnessed his attitude toward the Oval Office as something that was due him, oblivious to the unconventional manner in which he got there, and the posturing of his dynastic presumption, without the minimum regard for his uncertain mandate.
He has already demonstrated the shallowness of his words in his first attempt to build his cabinet with Senate democrats, which would have tipped the scales in the Republican's favor. He went on to appoint extremely controversial conservative Republicans illustrating the insincerity of his promise to "unite instead of divide."
It is evident that the new Bush administration offers no return to the future, but rather a step forward into the past. Instead of a launching pad into the new millennium, his cabinet appointments seem to build a bridge back to the eighties.
The first American century ended with the fall of Communism, the end of the Cold War, and a third industrial revolution in the field of communication technologies, accomplishments well beyond anyone's expectations. Al Gore had the intellectual wherewithal and the dedication to public service to carry on that propulsion. We can only hope that the new President's narrower vision does nothing to thwart what had every prospect of becoming the second American century.
January 2001
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