Clinton Raps On Recount

If every vote in Florida were counted, Vice President Al Gore would be the next president, President Clinton says, and "America will be embarrassed in front of the world if the votes are not counted."

The president offered his off-the-cuff observations to two reporters, Hilary MacKenzie, a Southam News reporter writing for the Ottawa Citizen in Canada and Stefan Simons of the German weekly Der Spiegel. They ran into Mr. Clinton at a book party in Washington Wednesday evening and engaged him in a half-hour conversation about the Florida election imbroglio.

MacKenzie and Simons wrote down their memory of the conversation immediately afterward. MacKenzie filed a story and said she was "absolutely certain" of the accuracy of her notes. She said she identified herself to Mr. Clinton as a reporter and gave him her business card.

"America will be embarrassed in front of the world if the votes are not counted," Mr. Clinton said, adding that Florida's policies allow citizens to scrutinize the ballots, according to MacKenzie.

"In a few weeks, students and their professor are going to recount all the votes in Florida," he was quoted as predicting, adding: "If the votes were counted Al Gore would carry the state."

"The president passionately dissected the minutiae of each county's votes," MacKenzie reported. She quoted him as saying Gore was denied the votes of Holocaust survivors living in Florida who wound up voting for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan because of confusion over the Palm Beach County ballot, and black voters "who were given the wrong instructions and double-punched."

MacKenzie and Simons said they encountered the president at a party celebrating the publication of Six Nightmares: Real Threats in a Dangerous World and How America Can Meet Them by Anthony Lake, his former national security adviser.