Remember that Simpsons Halloween special where Kang and Kodos try to take over the Earth by posing as Bob Dole and Bill Clinton during the 1996 election? In yet another demonstration of how The Simpsons was ahead of it's time, Kodos/Bob Dole has the following line, "I hope we achieve a fair result in the election, eliminating the need for a violent bloodbath."

The movie Recount, which premiered on HBO on May 25, portrays the events surrounding the contested results of Florida's vote in the 2000 election. Though it tends to give me atrial flutter whenever I revisit those events, I very much enjoyed the movie. Kevin Spacey stars as Ron Klain, Gore's former chief of staff, who was largely in charge of the legal effort to get the votes in Florida recounted. On May 9, Charlie Rose talked to Kevin Spacey about his role. Although Spacey went on record as disagreeing with this assertion, the film is clearly biased in favor of those who would have liked to see the Florida recount proceed. It would be pretty poor storytelling to portray it any other way. However, there is a speech by James Baker's character towards the end (played by Tom Wilkinson) that I liked very much. His point is that, whatever you can say about the 2000 election, we followed a proper, legal process. The tension that our country experienced could have easily escalated to the level of a national crisis, perhaps even civil war. But the legal process was followed, the various Florida courts as well as the Supreme Court made their respective rulings and those rulings were respected. There were no tanks in the streets, no riots, no armed insurgency.

So, for those of you - like me - for whom the past eight years have been a perpetual nightmare, I recommend this movie. If you compare ourselves to countries like Kenya or Zimbabwe, who couldn't make a peaceful transition of power if their lives depended on it, this movie may restore some of your faith in our democracy.

Charlie's interview with Kevin Spacey can be seen here: