Discounting a recount
Warren Christopher and James Baker agree, HBO's new film on the Florida recount is full of hooey.
Warren Christopher, the former secretary of state who served as the public face of the Gore team in the early days of the recount effort, said this week that he believed the film, “Recount,” was “pure fiction” in its portrayal of him as a weak strategist unprepared to stand up to the aggressive tactics of James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state who was the chief Republican adviser.
Even Mr. Baker questioned the portrayal of Mr. Christopher. “I don’t think I was as ruthless as the movie portrays me, and I know he was not as wimpish as it makes him appear,” Mr. Baker said.
Somehow, I don't think the outcry over the liberties taken with actual events in this movie will reach the level they did over ABC's 9/11 movie.
A gaggle of media critics has already reviewed the film and pronounced it worthy. What all or most of them have ignored is the extent to which the film departs reality—the quantum of “truthiness” versus truth it contains.
Danny Strong, a first-time screenwriter, apparently felt the story of what actually happened in 2000 was not sufficiently compelling to attract Hollywood interest, so he conjured up a story line that had greater dramatic potential: George Bush won the 2000 recount battle because the Democrats--principally Warren Christopher and Bill Daley--were too weak, too genteel, to withstand the Jim Baker-led steamroller. Not even the heroic, efforts of the only Democratic operative in Florida with the fortitude to take on Big Jim could save the ship.
But Strong had a problem--how to establish the ineffectuality of the Democratic side of the fight. He decided to it by creating a scene or two in which Warren Christopher would utter words of compromise, naivete and illogic. In just a few screen minutes, Strong could establish a major, overarching theme of the film and, if he were lucky, could manage it without ever talking to Christopher.
When push came to shove, Strong realized that he had to cover himself and make contact with Christopher. He's admitted that he waited to do so until the day the scenes involving the Christopher character were shot. He also admits that he refused Christopher's request to review a copy of the script, even though he accorded that courtesy and beyond to Jim Baker, Ron Klain and others depicted in the film.
Christopher learned that the film was in production when his tailor told him he'd been retained to produce a suit for the actor who was to play him. In other words,Strong felt it was important to get the wardrobe right for the Christopher character, but didn't regard the facts as rising to the same level of importance.
What Strong did not want Christopher to know was that the script contained scenes in which his character declares that the recount dispute can be compromised and that no lawsuits will be filed on behalf of Gore. Strong knew that once Christopher read or was told of such scenes, the jig would be up--that he'd have to confront the fact that he was about to distort beyond recognition the character of a man universally regarded as a quintessential litigator. A scrupulously ethical lawyer? Yes. Weak-kneed? Never.
The truly weak-kneed are those who blithely chalk off to "dramatic license" the gross distortions of the sort Strong has embraced, while simultaneously proclaiming reverence for the faithful preservation of history. Like it or not, today's viewing public increasingly treats as fact what is fed to them as "docu-drama," unaware that in most cases they are consuming an ounce of “docu” to every gallon of “drama.” And like it or not, what they treat as fact becomes fact for others in this generation and those following.
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