Nikolaevich Tolstoy once wrote a short story titled `God Sees the Truth, But Waits."
                    I suggest we nurse this grudge, very carefully.

                    It is clear to me, as an admittedly partisan Democrat, that Al Gore
                    carried the state of Florida on Election Day by somewhere in the
                    neighborhood of 40,000 votes.

                    Understand that I am perfectly comfortable with the idea that the
                    guy who actually gets the most votes does not necessarily win the
                    election. Fine, dem's da rules. But in all honesty, I not only think
                    the Republicans stole this, I think they know they stole it.

                    On the whole, I think it's better this way. For one thing, I think
                    there are so many immature jerks in their party that they clearly
                    had a hard time admitting it was just one helluva close election and
                    the smart thing to do was count the votes carefully. Determined to
                    be more self-righteous, more outraged than thou, no matter what.

                    It seems to me an almost singular stigmata of their party, that
                    weird inability to admit that their own stuff do stink. I mean, there
                    we were, in the middle of the Hypocrisy Fiesta Bowl -- with our
                    side, I might add, pulling such revolting maneuvers as signing onto a
                    lawsuit to throw out military ballots, whilst publicly maintaining that
                    every vote should count -- and suddenly here are our Distinguished and
                   Worthy Opponents supporting a naked, raw putsch by the Florida Legislature.

                    Let's not change the rules after the game is over, they kept saying,
                    let's just have the Florida Legislature select the electors instead.
                    That was the single scariest and most outrageous thing that
                    happened during the 36-day war.

                    I'm not saying one should give in to bullies because it's so
                    unpleasant to argue with people who believe volume trumps reason.
                    I just think somebody needs to be grown-up enough to recognize
                    that was an incredibly close election -- we had the votes, they had
                    the rules and that's the way it goes. Al Gore made a helluva good
                    speech the other night, setting, I thought, just the right public tone.

                    What I'm suggesting is a private tone among Democrats of forgive
                    and remember. Remember real well. Even in the middle of that
                    skunk-match there were some outstanding stinkers, and they
                    deserve to be remembered at the polls in two years.

                    I'm sorry to make that argument, since it's always better to vote in the hope
                    that your candidate will turn out to be another Lincoln rather than because the
                    other guy makes you puke, but we need some long memories here.

                    We need memories to keep us energized long enough to see through
                    what is sure to be a tedious process of getting better voting
                    equipment. This is real simple: Punch-card voting machines
                    recorded five times as many ballots with no presidential vote than
                    did the more modern optical scanners.

                    The `Sun-Sentinel' of South Florida figured out that the percentage
                    counted on the best optical scanners was better than 99 percent
                    but under the punch-card system it was 96.1 percent.

                    The cheesy old punch-card system is more widely used in areas
                    where poor and black citizens live. Two-thirds of Florida's black
                    voters reside in counties that use the punch-card system, while 56
                    percent of the white voters do. People who accused Jesse Jackson
                    of "injecting racism" into this election as an issue have not spent
                    much time in north Florida lately.

                    What we need here is the old Joe Hill reaction: Don't mourn, or even
                    sulk; organize! Why be bitter when you could be useful instead? Call
                    the nearest Democratic Party headquarters and sign up for the next
                    run. If all you have time to do is make a phone calls for maybe an
                    hour a day right before the next election, then volunteer to do
                    that. There's more than one way to rectify this unfairness.

                    In the meantime, we can all cherish the characters this episode in
                    national life has brought to our attention.

                    Perhaps the oddest experience anyone had was poor Joe Klock, who
                    was sitting there in Tallahassee, being general counsel for the
                    Secretary of State's office, surely one of the sleepiest places this
                    side of Nod, where nothing interesting has happened for 120 years.

                    All of a sudden he's arguing in front of the U.S. Supreme Court,
                    having one of those waking nightmares where you're not only
                    out-lawyered, but you can't get anyone's name right. You even
                    addressed one justice by a dead guy's name.

                    Mr. Klock, look at it this way, you know you've already been through
                    the worst experience of your life, so you can coast from here on in.
 

                          Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Star-Telegram. You can reach her
                          at 1005 Congress Ave., Suite 920, Austin, TX 78701; (512) 476-8908