Did you watch "Recount," that HBO movie about the 2000 Florida recount?

I thought it was quite good. Though the story was mainly told from the Gore side, the Bush point of view was represented fairly, and there was a good overall balance to it. Complicated legal issues were explained surprising well without belaboring through through the use of various actors playing characters shown working out their next moves and real TV reporters seen in old video clips, telling us the news as it happened 8 years ago. It was especially exciting to see those old news clips, because, perfectly edited in, they stirred up the emotion that I felt when I saw them the first time. And the acted-out material really worked on me — as I was yelling at Al Gore not to concede and laughing at you don’t have to be snippy about it.

Kevin Spacey was the main character, Ron Klain. You either like Spacey or you don't. He seems to use dullness as his technique, and at this point, for me, it seems hammy. But his fleshy face was kind of subtly fascinating on the HDTV screen and I enjoyed him well enough.

We loved Laura Dern as Katherine Harris. It's so easy to mock the vain and exaggerated Harris, but Dern did a good job of getting inside the character. I could laugh and feel some reasonable sympathy for her.

The best actor was Tom Wilkinson, who, playing James Baker, mainly had to state legal positions and strategies. One thing I really love to get from an actor is the feeling that this person is thinking of the words he is saying — I want to lose the sense that there was a script — and Wilkinson really hit that spot for me with lines that must have looked dull on paper. After all, Baker was mainly about standing his ground, while the other side was scrappily fighting for every vote. But Wilkinson made this stolid intransigence damned exciting.

Of course, I got a kick out of seeing actors play the Supreme Court Justices. The Stevens and O'Connor were particularly good. The Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn't speak — maybe she wasn't even an actress — but she looked the part — amusingly.

That's my opinion. Take into account that: 1. I voted for Gore and rooted for Gore throughout the recount, 2. I accepted the Supreme Court's determination from the beginning (and continue to accept it after writing about it in depth and teaching it in detail numerous times), and 3. I didn't want Bush to become President, but I never hated him, and I voted for him in 2004.

IN THE COMMENTS: Somefeller writes:

I saw the film at a premiere last week at the Baker Institute at Rice. It was a lot of fun, and watching James Baker and Kevin Spacey elbowing each other every now and then when a good line in the film came on certainly added to the atmosphere. At one point, the sound went out on the film in a point when Spacey's character was having a big scene, to the horror of the Baker Institute staff, but it turned out great because Kevin Spacey jumped up and said his lines live, to the enjoyment of the audience, who basically got a free one minute live performance from Spacey. I spoke with Laura Dern at the reception after the film and asked her about her portrayal of Harris. She said the lines that Harris spoke in the film came from Harris's own book and from interviews with other GOP people involved in the Florida recount, so they weren't just created by the writers. She also said she tried to portray Harris (who she thought was basically someone in over her head and in many ways used cynically by other Republicans) sympathetically and not just as a cartoon character or villain, and she hoped that came through to the audience.

Hillary Clinton is a schoolyard bully.

Says Michael Goodwin:

It's a gang-girl taunt when she tells a big rally she will go anywhere, anytime for a throw down.

She offers to [debate] without a moderator, just the two of them asking and answering questions. Stripped of her gauzy spin that it could be like Lincoln-Douglas, she's really challenging him to a bareknuckle punchout. On TV.

It's what a schoolyard tough would do: Knock on a rival's door and dare him to come out and fight on the street. Right here, right now. No rules, just a slugfest, you and me.

And that's a good thing, right? I want this in my President. Don't you?

IN THE COMMENTS: Somefeller said:

The Goodwin article is further evidence of a certain wussy factor among many of Obama's supporters. I don't know if Goodwin is an official supporter, but he sounds like a standard Obama press fanboy. I was going to use another word that ends in "ssy" to describe this phenomenon, but I didn't want Ann to say I was sexist.

I'll say it: sissy. Obama should debate.

Drew W said:

The nastier Hillary gets, the more I like her, I agree.

Me too.

Maguro said:

This is a lot better than the crying schtick. You go, girl!

Exactly.

Fen said:

Iran is a bit of a bully too.

Maybe Obama can ask his teacher to speak with Ahmadinejad's parents.

Owie. That hurt.

"Engineering marvel" or "colossal eyesore" or scariest tourist attraction in the United States?

The Grand Canyon Skywalk is supposed to help the finances of the Hualapai Indian Tribe, but even assuming lots of people want to walk on a gigantic glass walkway incomprehensibly jutting out over the deep canyon, there are many problems with this:

[Some] in the tribe have been critical of what they say is the development's lack of sustainability, pointing out that water used here is trucked in over miles of unpaved, rutted roads, and that there is no sewer, trash, telephone or electrical service. The airport, which is expanding, operates on diesel generators....

Tribal officials admit it will be difficult to operate a full-service resort without upgrading infrastructure and finding a local source of water. Hualapai officials said last week that they were considering taking water from the Colorado River.

Pumping water up nearly a vertical mile from the river to the rim of the canyon could be fraught with financial and legal challenges. Joseph Feller, who teaches water law at Arizona State University, says no tribe has ever taken water from the Colorado without first negotiating with the federal government.

It sounds like a disaster all around.

Here in Madison, we have a building with a beautiful, dramatic, long glass stairway:



The glass is even frosted, so they're not encouraging you to stare down, and I know a lot of people who are afraid to walk on it.