The Baker Institute for Public Policy is a familiar stop for big names in politics and international relations. ...
But the Rice University think tank moved into People magazine-style celebrity Tuesday when it hosted the premiere of Recount, an HBO movie based on the 2000 presidential election and its ultimate resolution by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Like Band of Brothers and The Sopranos and Entourage and the recent miniseries on the 2nd President of the United States, John Adams, I expect this will be no less excellent television. A teaser, if you don't have HBO (and why don't you, for crissakes):
(A)ctors Kevin Spacey and Laura Dern were there, on a real red carpet, accompanied by writer Danny Strong, director Jay Roach and executive producers Paula Weinstein and Len Amato.
They stepped from black Suburbans onto carpet rented for the occasion, mugging for a small platoon of television cameras. Inside, Spacey and Amato paid homage to former Secretary of State James A. Baker III for hosting the film, especially considering his role in the events upon which it is based.
A discussion on election reform, led by Baker and former President Carter, followed the screening. They worked on the topic when they chaired a bipartisan commission on the topic in 2005.
"I think it's an amazingly positive sign that James Baker is fighting for the reform of laws that ... were in his favor in 2000," said Spacey, who played Baker nemesis Ron Klain. Klain spearheaded the recount effort for Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore, while Baker worked for Republican George W. Bush.
Baker's subsequent work on reform made the Rice campus an obvious place for the screening, Amato said. "What better place to come?"
Well, some of the reactionary 26-percenters who comment at Chron.com would have preferred elsewhere, but like the past seven and one-half years have been for the rest of us, too bad ...
It drew about 250 people, mostly donors to Rice and supporters of Baker's work who offered a few appreciative chuckles at actor Tom Wilkinson's portrayal of — and uncanny resemblance to — Baker as a courtly but tough partisan political operative.
Dern, on the other hand, played Florida's former secretary of state, Katherine Harris, for broad comic relief.
"When someone asks you to play Katherine Harris, you don't say no," Dern said before the screening.
Still, like Spacey, Amato and Strong, she said she also was drawn to the project by the hope that the film will spark public discussion about changing the nation's election laws. That's a topic Baker and Carter have discussed since their 2005 commission recommended dozens of changes, including the use of a national voter photo ID. None have become national law.
In their talk after the movie, the pair said America still faces problems with voter confidence in the way ballots are cast and counted.
"There's still a degree of unfinished business out there when you look at the election system in our country," Baker said.
Carter said the most important change would be requiring the use of a "paper trail" — receipts of a sort, that would help voters verify that their ballots have been cast as they intended on electronic voting machines. Paper trail equipment has been put to use in some states; Texas officials have resisted it.
Baker said the nation most urgently needs unified voter registration lists and the photo ID requirement. Democrats in the Texas Senate shot down a photo ID proposal last year; this year the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the requirement in Indiana.
James Baker, consigliere to the Bush family, still fights for the right no matter how wrong it may be.
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