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TODAY o december 3, 2000
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Election hijinks a boon to humor
Saeed Ahmed - Staff
Sunday, December 3, 2000
When the Clinton administration announced last week that it would begin providing daily briefings on top-secret national security matters to Texas Gov. George W. Bush, late night talk show host David Letterman couldn't resist this on-air crack : "The White House is giving Bush intelligence briefings. ... You know, some these jokes actually write themselves.”
Democracy may be taking a beating in the messy aftermath of Election 2000, but the ensuing hijinks have provided a steady source of ready-made punchlines -- for both late night comics, suddenly drowning in fresh material, and reporters, looking for a departure from the tedium of covering the ever-evolving legal wrangling.
Take, for example, 'chad' -- the four-letter word that has brought a presidential election to a halt. Once, dictionaries either ignored the noun or relegated it to the scrapheap of technical jargon. But now, with the word's sudden leap into the lexicon, men named Chad are the new media darlings -- eagerly sought out and asked to expound on how it feels to have their names dragged through the mud.
The Palm Beach Post scored the biggest coup when it scoured the nation and found Chad Chad -- a thirty something television producer.
"We're more than just a punch-out; more than just a hole of paper,” said the good-humored Chad, defending his community of namesakes everywhere. "If I have to come to Florida and rectify our sullied name, I will absolutely do it.”
He can rest easy. Turns out that the patron saint of disputed elections, is none other than St. Chad of Lichfield, England.
A methodist preacher in Houston, Texas, uncovered the ironic historical twist last week and the Oxford Dictionary of Saints backs him up.
It seems that when Chad, a seventh-century Anglican bishop, was elected as archbishop of York, some of his fellow clerics objected to his ordination on the grounds that his consecration had not been correctly performed.
Rather than cause division in the church, Chad humbly withdrew in favor of the other candidate. This so impressed the Archbishop of Canterbury that Chad was ordained the bishop of Lichfield -- and after his death, venerated as a saint.
Few expect either Bush or Gore to exhibit such humility, but many wish the big boys would take a cue from Weaver High School in Hartford, Conn., and at least play fair.
There, seniors Johnny Gore and Terrel Bush duked it out last month for the title of homecoming king -- and a \$35 refund on dance tickets. Bush, 18, was the eventual winner, but not before a third candidate affected the outcome by siphoning votes from the two top contenders, and ballots from three of the school's homerooms were disqualified because they were handled improperly.
"They should have let us run it," said Student Council President Fitzgerald Heslop, about the continued fuss over the presidential race. "We don't do recounts at Weaver."
Perhaps Bush and Gore should heed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's advice and just split the presidency to "avoid a civil war."
"I advise the American friends to announce this now since this would lead to solving the problem," said Gadhafi, putting in his two cents about the U.S. elections in an interview with an Italian television station set to air this week. "The one who wins more votes will be president and the one with less votes will be deputy president."
Gadhafi's suggestion is unlikely to appeal to either candidates or their cadre of lawyers -- which means we're a long way from an end to the post-election histrionics.
But if Bush ultimately does clinch the presidency, Gore can console himself knowing he won at least one race -- that of volunteer district director of the Marion Soil and Water Conservation Board in Salem, Ore.
No candidate wanted the district seat, so all 4,570 votes cast were write-ins. Gore won handily with 23 write-in votes, beating radio personality Howard Stern and John Doe, among others.
Alas, this race wasn't an out-and-out victory for Gore either. The highest vote-getter, Donald Duck, was disqualified for being an animated character.
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