I'm Pete du Pont with the National Center for Policy Analysis. It's nice to see the high poobahs of the national media have a sense of humor. At least a few of them do. And if there was ever an event to knock them off their perches and let the humor show, it was the coverage of election night 2000, when all the major news outfits got Florida wrong not once, but twice.
CNN commentator Jeff Greenfield has relived the night in a new book called "Oh, Waiter, One Order of Crow!" that's what he told viewers after Bush-friendly talking head Mary Matalin said he might have to eat crow if they called Florida wrong the first time.
Greenfield paints a wonderful behind-the-scenes picture of network news, replays the election campaign and the post-election legal dueling, and meditates on the American electorate's seeming indifference to the political world Greenfield still finds so compelling. Evenhanded, perceptive and cleverly written, Greenfield's book is a excellent review of the 2000 elections.
Those are my ideas, and at the NCPA we know ideas can change the world. I'm Pete du Pont. Next time, cutting spending.