It’s George W Bush, battered and bruised

When all is said and done, Gore clearly won the national popular vote by a 300,000-vote margin out of 100 million ballots cast. He may have even wonFlorida’s dead heat-photo finish election to carry the required 270 electoral votes to become the President, but he ran out of time to prove it.

Strictly speaking, the Bush camp and the US Supreme Court may have run the clock out on him.

The highest court returned the Gore v Bush case to the Florida Supreme Court saying “it is obvious that the recount cannot be conducted in compliance with the requirements of equal protection and due process without substantial additional work.” But the majority opinion of the court also held that December 12 deadline for states to send the electors was sacrosanct.

By reversing the Florida court’s recount decision just 90 minutes before midnight December 12, the nation’s highest court appeared to declare George W Bush a victor by default, since it gave no time for the Florida court to institute a proper recounting process.

In short, the Conservative-dominated U.S Supreme Court told the Liberal-leaning Florida Supreme Court: Put together a new recount system if you can, but sorry, you don’t have the time.

The Bush camp celebrated the decision in a subdued manner, evidently aware of the burden of history a tainted victory it will have to carry and waitingfor Gore to make the concession speech first. Gore went into a midnight huddle with his running mate Joe Lieberman to weigh his options amid muted calls from the Democratic Party ranks to throw in the towel.

President Clinton, now on a visit to Ireland, phoned his vice-president, but the substance of the conversation was not revealed. Speculation now centersaround whether Gore will bow out fully and gracefully and without qualifications, or whether he will make a qualified and questionable concession.

How he handles the denouement will be crucial to the political career of a man who has pursued the presidency with the intensity and purpose of a Captain Ahab, and who is thought to have many years of politics ahead of him.

The US Supreme Court’s decision was complex, contentious, and many layered, while barely concealing the politicisation of the highest judiciary.The nine justices voted 7-2 to reverse the Florida Court’s recount decision. That margin went down to 5-4 in deciding there no time for further recounts before the Electoral College meets on December 18 to pick thenext president.

The five justices, who in effect blocked Gore’s chances, are all Republican appointees of the Reagan-Bush dispensation. They include Chief JusticeWilliam Rehnquist, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, and Sandra Day OConnor.

The four left-of-center justices who dissented on the time issue while areeing the Florida courts methodology was flawed are Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Justice Stevens, in fact, wrote a severe indictment of the judicial system and a possible epitaph to the history of this epic and bitter contest in hisdissenting note.

“Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation’s confidence in the judge asan impartial guardian of the rule of law,” he recorded.

The ideological cleave and the embittered, albeit indirect, exchanges between the justices has stunned a country that is proud and almost worshipful of its history of jurisprudence and the exalted place of theSupreme Court in its national affairs. Few legal bodies in the world are more powerful, and despite its long-standing political cleft, it has always had the nation’s trust and respect.

Now political pundits and legal analysts agree that the wrenching five-week contest that followed the November 7 election has sullied both the judiciary and the political system. The general impression is that Bush is inheriting the White House by default with help from the judiciary, without proving conclusively or convincingly that he won the election.

“The Supreme Court decision to bar a recount in Florida comes at considerable cost to the public trust and the tradition of fair elections This will long be remembered as an election decided by a conservativeSupreme Court in favor of a conservative candidatewhile the ballots that could have brought a differentoutcome went uncounted in Florida,” The New York Times editorialised shortly after the 10.30 p.m. ruling.

In fact, some liberal quarters question the sanctity of the December 12 deadline for states to appoint electors, pointing out at least one instance (in Hawaii) when the electoral slate was sent late in December after a contested election.

In that instance though, the four Hawaii electors did not make a difference to the final outcome. Besides, the original reason why the U.S founding fathers designed such an elaborate timetable of ten weeksbetween the election day and the inauguration wasbecause of the difficulty in commuting (on horseback)in those days.

But the feeling in many Democratic quarters is that challenging the constitutionally-mandated timetable will further diminish Gore’s political career. Now may be the best time to give up, make a graciousconcession, and cut his losses.

Bush faces an equally difficult situation. The question on everyone’s mind is how he will overcome the stigma of a tainted victory and handle aPresidency with the Senate tied 50-50, a narrowmajority in the House, and a country polarised intoconservative and liberal, insular and progressive,heartland and seaboard, among other divides. His firsttask and first test would to live up to his claim thathe is a unifier.