Andrew Rice - The Year That Broke America - An Immigration Crisis, a Terrorist Conspiracy, the Summer of Survivor, a Ridiculous Fake Billionaire, a Fight for Florida, and the 537 Votes That Changed Everything

To Jennifer, my partner in crime and gardening,

and Eddie, who wishes this book had more stuff about baseball

It had all happened before; it might happen again. But no one alive had ever seen an election like this one: so improbably dramatic, so narrowly determined, so bitterly fought to the end and beyond the end. It was strange to watch, like an event from some other country or an episode from the nations uncivil early history. It made America once more a house divided, ripping up its rotting floorboards to reveal the creaky democratic machinery in the basement. It put cracks in the foundations. No one saw the constitutional crisis coming, and when the resolution came, it was messy. None of the nations institutions, or its statesmen, cloaked themselves in glory.

But now the unsettling conflict is blessedly in the past. It is Inauguration Day.

Here they come, their fine shoes click-clacking through the marble hallways of the U.S. Capitol, the players in our national theater, ready to raise the curtain on another term. They pass in dignified succession, walking down a stairway and out the double doors to the platform erected on the buildings West Front, facing the flag-bedecked National Mall.

First up: former president George Bush, basking in the freshening glow of American forgetfulness. Next comes Hillary Clinton, wearing a gleaming black leather coat and a satisfied smile, displaying her vindication to her many enemies. Next, the leaders of Congress and nine justices of the Supreme Court, their black robes scarcely concealing their naked partisanship.

Out on the Mall, the atmosphere is intense. Half the country thinks the other half has stolen the presidency. Half the country thinks the other half tried to steal it and failed. Thousands of angry citizens have come to decry the injustice done to their man, the largest inauguration protest in decades. The day is frigid and sleety; the security is oppressive. The sound of circling helicopters beats down ominously through the fog shrouding the Washington Monument.

The underlying vibe, a Washington Post reporter will write the next day, was unrest. There are violent clashes taking place in the streets. Protesters chant, Hail to the thief!

Up above on the dais, though, the nations leaders appear convivial. The fight has been conceded to the winner. It is time to perform the constitutional ritual. At the stroke of noon on January 20, 2001, a new president of the United States will be sworn in: George W. Bush of Texas. There is a reassuring familiarity to the transition. It is a new millennium, but the same old America.

Heres the departing tandem, in matching dark overcoats, coming down a hall flanked by marines standing at attention with bayonets. A military band plays ruffles and flourishes.

Ladies and gentlemen, an announcer says, the president of the United States, the Honorable William Jefferson Clinton, and the vice president of the United States, the Honorable Albert Gore Jr. They descend the stairs. Clinton is buoyant, shaking hands, squeezing every last drop of joy out of his office. Gore wears a dutiful rictus, knowing everyone is watching for a flinch.

We can only wonder what Al Gore must be thinking, anchorman Tom Brokaw says on NBC.

It was a close thing, the 2000 election. Unimaginably close. More than 100 million Americans voted, and it all came down to Florida, as if history were drawn there by some invisible gravitational force. Florida, the unlikely crucible, Flori-duh, the state that couldnt get it right. Florida, the nations exotic misfit, a place of loose morals, louche wealth, fake bodies, and tropical conspiracy. Florida, with its redneck north and its polyethnic south. Florida, that land of booms and busts, strip malls and strip joints; habitat of the Florida Man, the fantastically stupid criminal; and of the Florida celebrity, who was famous for some crass reason. Florida, the state that already was what the rest of America was becoming, was the one that swung it, by 537 votes.

Yes, it is safe to assume that Al Gore may be thinking about Florida.

Gore is the first candidate since 1888 to be denied the presidency while winning a majority of the national popular vote. And he lost it despite running as the candidate of the incumbent party in a time of boundless prosperity. The world was at peace, enjoying the placid interlude that began with perestroika. The U.S. economy was experiencing an unprecedented expansion driven by globalization and the creative force of new technology. The budget deficit? It was gone! There was now a national surplus, which was projected to amount to almost $5 trillion over the next ten years. Crime? It had miraculously abated, and as a consequence, big cities were thriving. As the sole remaining superpower, Americas global influence and cultural power reigned unchallenged. It had been almost a decade since the U.S. military had gone to war.

Even so, events conspired to make Gore the loser. He blames the guy next to him. He and Clinton once had a warm partnership, but they hardly talk anymore. Their tortured relationship makes for delicious psychodrama, which is far more interesting to the Washington press corps than whatever seemingly minor policy differences exist between Gore and Bush.

The younger George Bush, known as Dubya after his distinguishing middle initial, ran as an easygoing centrist. He calls himself a compassionate conservative. Bill Clinton, the cleverest political animal of his generation, knew Gore was in trouble as soon as he heard the phrase. Bush has presented himself as a candidate of continuity, with only modest plans for the country. He has promised that he will do just a few things as president and do them well. The universal consensus is that the 2000 election was a bit of a snooze, a campaign of small differencesat least until the votes were cast. Then, down in Florida, everything went crazy.

Time to set that asidehere come the winners. First, Dick Cheney, wearing that sidelong smirk. Hes considered a steadying presence, a man of deep experience. He descends the stairs, turns to the right, and takes his place, standing in front of a leather wingback chair, behind bulletproof glass.

In a moment, theres Bush, chin upturned, eyes narrowed. He joins his running mate and his waiting family members: his wife, Laura, resplendent in blue; his beaming college-age twin daughters; his brother Jeb, the governor of Floridathat was awkwardwho is taking pictures with a disposable camera. At the center is his dad, proud Poppy, who has taken to calling his boy Quincy, after the last son to follow his father as president. Dubya has been reading up on him: John Quincy Adams, a one-termer, elected in dubious circumstances, dislodged by a bloodthirsty populist.

Today we honor the past in commemorating two centuries of inaugurations in Washington, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican master of ceremonies, says in his sober opening remarks. Witnessed by the Congress, Supreme Court, governors, and presidents past, the current president will stand by as the new president peacefully takes office. This is a triumph of our democratic republic, a ceremony befitting a great nation.

At the appointed time, Bush takes the oath administered by the chief justice of the United States, which only weeks before put an end to the electoral dispute, by a single vote, in the case of Bush v. Gore. The television cameras, focusing tight on the new president, capture a tear rolling down his craggy face. He is a God-fearing man, and he believes the Creator has put him in this place, at this moment, according to His unknowable design. Bush will not be remembered as a great orator, but on this day, he gives an address that even one of his most skeptical critics will describe as shockingly good, replete with biblical references and calls for national healing.