Movie Review and Political Rant

I just finished watching a movie on HBO called “Recount.” It followed one of Al Gore’s campaign coordinators (played by Kevin Spacey, one of my favorite actors) during the protracted 2000 election crisis. It was painfully depressing to watch; I was only 13 when the actual events took place, so it filled a lot of holes in my memory and knowledge of the events. Back in 2000, my political knowledge consisted of what I could regurgitate from my conservative environment, so I blindly followed the “Sore Loserman” narrative, when in truth the situation was far more complicated and far more corrupt.

 

My favorite scene showed Spacey’s character getting drunk with a friend while watching a Bush lawyer spin unflattering reality into political narrative; a bit slurringly, he lists off all the things wrong with the Florida election: the fact that the authority to call the election and authorize recounts rested with the head of Bush’s Florida campaign, the fact that the state disenfranchised over 20,000 black voters with a wildly inaccurate “purge list,” and most disturbing, the fact that no one seemed to give a rat’s ass. “Doesn’t anyone care?” he moans over his liquor. It’s all well and good to expose when someone’s breaking all standards of legality and decency, but apparently that’s not enough; you have to convince people that it matters.

 

It seems like this attitude has gotten worse and worse over the years, as our current leaders have continuously shifted the goalposts of acceptable and legal behavior (or maybe I’m just able to see it more clearly now that I’m older). You can turn on a TV or log on to a computer at any time and immediately find evidence of the White House lying to the public, presenting false evidence to support its agenda, breaking federal law, defying the Constitution, defying international accords—hell, you can find administration officials admitting to a lot of this. But those admissions always have a smug tone: “yeah, we’re holding people indefinitely and torturing them in secret military prisons…what of it?” It’s because they know that no one will do anything about it, and sure enough, people blow it off and marginalize it into the realm of “political matters.” Instead of acting on evidence that the White House is breaking the law, lawmakers and pundits turn whether they should be allowed to do it into a political talking point, thus absolving them from punishment. Habeas Corpus may be written into our Constitution, but now it’s a matter of political opinion; it’s a different take on a national security issue, not blatant high treason.

 

I normally blast people who whine about partisanship, and I belong to the school of thought that says anyone who claims not to be partisan either doesn’t know enough about politics or just doesn’t like them. But in the case of people turning their backs on the law because their party’s interest would be better served that way, I can’t help but decry such a selfish and dishonest affront to liberty. At some point, we have to put the welfare of our country, its citizens, and the world at large over party affiliation; this is the attitude that Gore adopted when he finally conceded the 2000 election, but unfortunately for all of us, the other side did not follow suit.