Now there is a movement afoot in the land to codify this chronic excuse-itis into law. In a recent column, Ben Wattenberg castigated the major broadcast networks for their recklessness on election night. He and others contend that, when the networks called Florida early in the evening for Al Gore, they prompted significant numbers of Republican voters to spare themselves the inconvenience of voting and stay home. Democratic victories in Senate races in Oregon and Washington have been attributed to this effect. Proposed electoral reforms include not using exit polls to project the winners of close races, not projecting winners of states when the margin is one percent or less, and not projecting the winner of a state until all the polls are closed within that state.
Conservatives love to talk about responsibility.
Liberty, they tell us, implies the need for responsibility. But let an election be too close for comfort, and they start caterwauling like all the folks they routinely ridicule. White racism may not be to blame for the existence of a black underclass, and guns may not be to blame for Columbine. On a recent Saturday, I was watching a basketball game between my beloved Duke Blue Devils the University of Maryland Terrapins. With 55 seconds to play, Maryland led by 10 points, and everyone thought the game was, well, over.