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Sunday September 9, 10:55 am Eastern Time Press Release SOURCE: Newsweek Newsweek Cover: 'The Secret Vote That Made Bush President' Justice Souter: With 'One More Day' Gore Might Have Prevailed Before U.S. Supreme Court In Private Gathering With Russian Judges, U.S. justices reveal Personal Agony on Decision Breyer: Decision Was 'The Most Outrageous, Indefensible Thing' the Court Had Ever Done Ginsburg: 'Are We So Highly Political After All?' Stevens: 'I'm So Tired. I Am Just So Exhausted.' Kennedy Defends Majority: 'Sometimes You Just Have to Step Up to the Plate' Gore Called Erin Brockovich to Ask Her to Help Collect Florida Ballot Horror Stories NEW YORK, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- A month after the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision for George W. Bush in the presidential election, dissenting Justice David Souter met at the Court with a group of prep-school students from Choate. He told them how frustrated he was that he couldn't broker a deal to win over one more justice -- Anthony Kennedy being the obvious candidate. ``If he'd had 'one more day -- one more day,' Souter now told the Choate students, he believed he would have prevailed,'' according to an excerpt of an upcoming book by Newsweek Senior Writer David Kaplan. (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20010909/HSSU002 ) In the excerpt from ``The Accidental President,'' which appears in the September 17 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, September 10), Kaplan gives a first ever behind-the-scenes account of the U.S. Supreme Court after it rendered the 5-to-4 vote that gave George W. Bush the presidency. Kaplan writes: ``The sands of history will show Bush won by a single vote, cast in a 5-to-4 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court. The vote was Tony Kennedy's. One justice had picked the president.'' Kaplan's book excerpt reveals that the animosities within the Court spilled over at a gathering of the Justices while they were hosting six visiting Russian judges. ``'In our country,' a Russian justice said, bemused, 'we wouldn't let judges pick the president.' The justice added that he knew that, in various nations, judges were in the pocket of executive officials -- he just didn't know that was so in the United States,'' Kaplan writes. ``Stephen Breyer was angry and launched into an attack on the decision, right in front of his colleagues. It was 'the most outrageous, indefensible thing' the Court had ever done, he told the visiting judges. 'We all agree to disagree, but this is different.' Breyer was defiant, brimming with confidence that he'd been right in his long dissent.'' Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was more baffled than annoyed, attempting to rationalize the legitimacy of the ruling. ``'Are we so highly political, after all?' she said. 'We've surely done other things, too, that were activist, but here we're applying the Equal Protection Clause in a way that would de-legitimize virtually every election in American history','' Kaplan writes. ``Sometimes you have to be responsible and step up to the plate,'' Justice Kennedy told the Russians. ``You have to take responsibility.'' Justice John Paul Stevens offered, ``I'm so tired. I am just so exhausted.'' The excerpt from ``The Accidental President'' (William Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins), also reviews the private goings-on of the Gore and Bush camps. Bush campaign guru Karl Rove was watching MSNBC when the Court ruling was announced. He called Bush in Texas; the governor was watching CNN. ``This is good news,'' Rove told Bush. ``No, no, this is bad news,'' Bush replied. ``Where are you now?'' Bush asked Rove. ``In the McLean Hilton -- standing in my pajamas.'' ``Well, I'm in my pajamas, too,'' said the new president-elect, at 9:00 pm CST. Kaplan also reveals an earlier, scrapped, secret plan hatched by Al Gore while his aides were trying to figure out how they could collect enough horror stories to convince a judge that the Florida ballot was confusing, Kaplan writes. ``Gore had not only been thinking about the problem, but he'd done something about it. He'd called Erin Brockovich ... the real Erin Brockovich. The vice president thought 'she should come to Florida and lead our efforts to collect affidavits.''' Gore aide Michael Whouley told the Vice President he thought it was a really bad idea, while aide Ron Klain, exhausted, said ``Sounds fine to me, it's great.'' Klain said later: ``Bring in a camel with three heads. It just seemed like the whole thing's a huge menagerie at this point. Erin Brockovich -- of course!'' On the Bush side, Kaplan reveals how immediately after the election Bush campaign official Don Evans asked former Senator Jack Danforth to represent the campaign in a federal challenge to the constitutionality of the manual recount in Florida. Danforth was vacationing with his wife in Cancun, before finishing a second Margarita, a hostess told him he had a call. After listening to Evans, Danforth asked, ``Is there a chance of us prevailing?'' He then worried aloud to Evans that any lawyer filing it was jeopardizing his credibility. The next morning, Evans called back and said, ``We've thought about it and we want you to do this.'' The Bush campaign arranged to send a private plane to take Danforth to Tallahassee. Danforth checked out of his hotel, though he remained uneasy. He decided he needed to talk to Bush himself. In his next call with Evans -- and the leader of Bush's team, Jim Baker, on the line as well -- Danforth said so. Danforth assumed they'd put him right through. The phone rang, but it was Evans again ``Jack,'' he said, ``it sounds like your heart's not in this. Maybe it's best for you not to do it. Have a nice vacation.'' |
