We're not sure if she's being funny to make a point about the Associated Press, CNN, and other media outlets declaring Joe Biden President-elect, but on her Facebook page, Minnesota conservative personality Sue Jeffers posted a photoshopped version of the Wednesday, November 8, 2000 Washington Times front page above the fold.
"Anyone remember this?" she asks.
As we write, 185 of her Facebook friends react to the post, 33 comment, and 103 people share it. The trope that "the media" declared for Gore in 2000 is being shared across conservative networks, one of many consolation prizes in the post-election discourse.
Alas for those who remember the "President Gore" headline, the fine print in lede reads:
George W. Bush, the son of the president who was vanquished by the Clinton-Gore team eight years ago, avenged his father early this morning by defeating Al Gore, creating only the second father-son presidential dynasty in history.
The headline is Photoshopped. Here's the original headline in the conservative Washington Times:
The image directly above is from The Mitchell Archives site post, PRESIDENT BUSH WINS 2000 ELECTION….BEFORE THE FLA. RECOUNT! via the Catholic Monitor blog post, Before the Gore "37 days" Litigation & Recount, 2000 Washington Times: "PRESIDENT BUSH Florida pushes Texan over the top with bare majority" which is a corrected headline and image, the copy in the post notes:
Editor's Note: The Catholic Monitor found an image on google images that appeared to be real that read "November 8, 2000 Washington Times: 'PRESIDENT GORE Florida pushes Gore over the top with bare majority'" that was posted. A reader informed us that it was not real so it was deleted and we made other corrections to the original post in line with that information. We found the apparent real front page and above posted that one to make that image correction, but kept most of the original post which was still valid. We apologize for the mistakes.
As we said, Jeffers could be pulling a deadpan funny on her online fans. According to Networks Try To Explain Blown Call, in the Washington Post:
Television networks tried to explain Wednesday how they blew a call on the Florida election results – not once but twice – the second time prematurely declaring George W. Bush the next president. The networks were forced to take back that call after 4 a.m. EST when it became clear that the close Florida count would be contested.
"We don't just have egg on our face," NBC's Tom Brokaw said. "We have an omelette."
NBC had been first to declare a winner in Florida on Tuesday, saying Al Gore won at 7:50 p.m EST. Its rivals quickly followed suit, basing their information largely on polling data provided by Voter News Service, a consortium created by The Associated Press, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC.
The networks take their victory projections seriously and promised before Election Day to be cautious if the race was close.
"Let's get one thing straight right from the get-go: We would rather be last in reporting returns than be wrong," Dan Rather said on CBS at the outset of coverage. "If we say somebody's carried the state, you can take that to the bank."
But at 9:55, CNN took back its projection, saying Florida was now too close to call. CNN election experts had noticed a discrepancy between a VNS estimate and the actual vote, a network spokeswoman said.
Other networks, VNS and the AP quickly took back their predictions of a Gore victory in Florida. As the evening wore on, TV analysts increasingly gave Bush the edge. After polls closed on the West Coast, it became clear that Florida would decide things.
At 2:16 a.m., Fox News Channel declared Bush the winner in Florida. Within four minutes, NBC, CBS, CNN and ABC did the same. The AP said the race was still too close to name a winner.
Fox made the call based on its analysis of the vote count – it believed Bush's lead was so large there was no way Gore could overcome it given what experts knew about ballots left uncounted, said John Moody, Fox News Channel's vice president of news and editorial quality. . . .
Nevertheless, what this material makes us remember a historic moment in Sue Jeffers' acumen. Back in 2009, activist Nick Espinosa secured a place in an anti-immigration race Jeffers organized with Hanska's Ruthie Hendrycks, Our post Activist punks Tea Party Against Amnesty; rally supporters assault protesters (updated) tells some of that story. At City Pages, Hart Van Denberg reported in Punk'd anti-immigrant protesters react:
The fun and games started when a man billing himself as Robert Erickson -- it's unclear that that's his real name -- was introduced by KTLK talking head Sue Jeffers. Erickson sounded right on track with the sentiments of the rally -- at first. Then he turned the tables on the protesters.
"Let's send these European immigrants back where they came from! I don't care if they are Polish, Irish, English, Italian, or Norwegian! European immigrants are responsible for the most violent and heinous crimes in the history of the world, including genocide and slavery," he shouted. "Let's round them up and ship them out. Then we need to hit them at home where they sleep, I don't care if we separate families, they should have known better when they came here illegally."Erickson's allies in the crowd begin chanting "Columbus go home!"
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