Here We Go Again

Minutes after the Florida Supreme Court delivered it’s jurisprudential stunner Friday night, a few reporters caught up with Dexter Douglas, Gore’s number two lawyer on the case. The laid back, unflappable, legal powerhouse in good ole boy disguise who checks his cattle every night after work said simply, "Chaos."

Can "chaos" be an understatement?

Late Saturday political heads were spinning anew as a divided U.S. Supreme Court granted George Bush’s plea that a manual count of Florida "undervotes" be stopped immediately.

All across Florida, judges, election officials, party lawyers, and county clerks who had pulled all-nighters to get the votes counted by Sunday, slammed on the breaks and skidded into dumbfoundedness.

So once again, the key to the road map of what’s next is found in the courts -- this time federal courts. Legal briefs are due to the Supreme Court Sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. Oral arguments commence Monday morning at 10:00 a.m. and are scheduled to last 1 1/2 hours.

Bush’s team will be heartened by the brief opinion of Justice Antonin Scalia, that’ said "the issuance the stay suggests that a majority of the Court, while deciding the issues presented believe that the petitioner [Bush] has a substantially probability of success."

Bush’s lawyers have found further encouragement in a dissenting opinion by the Florida court’s Chief Justice, Charles T. Wells, who wrote that he saw a "real and present likelihood" that the result would be "substantial damage" to the nation, the state and the high court itself. He said the majority ruling had "no foundation in the law of Florida" and that a lower court decision rejecting the recounts was correct.

If the Supremes give Bush a clear, decisive, timely victory on Monday or Tuesday, it becomes extremely difficult to concoct a scenario where Gore can prevail. It would be the final deathblow in a saga that has made the word “final” a joke.

If the high court hands Gore a slam-dunk win, hurdles still remain for the Vice President. Most obviously, he would have to get a winning margin in the recount of Florida’s “undervotes.” That is not a done deal, and some sources say the scattered and preliminary hand recounts on Saturday actually looked good for Bush.