2017年12月英语六级阅读练习100篇：It Is Bush

　　It Is Bush

　　On the 36th day after they had voted, Americans finally learned Wednesday who would be theirnext president: Governor George W. Bush of Texas.

　　Vice President Al Gore, his last realistic avenue for legal challenge closed by a U. S. SupremeCourt decision late Tuesday, planned to end the contest formally in a televised eveningspeech of perhaps 10 minutes, advisers said.

　　They said that Senator Joseph Lieberman, his vice presidential running mate, would first makebrief comments. The men would speak from a ceremonial chamber of the Old Executive officeBuilding, to the west of the White House.

　　The dozens of political workers and lawyers who had helped lead Mr. Gore’s unprecedentedfight to claw a come-from-behind electoral victory in the pivotal state of Florida were thankedWednesday and asked to stand down.

　　“The vice president has directed the recount committee to suspend activities,” William Daley, the Gore campaign chairman, said in a written statement.

　　Mr. Gore authorized that statement after meeting with his wife, Tipper, and with top advisersincluding Mr. Daley.

　　He was expected to telephone Mr. Bush during the day. The Bush campaign kept a low profileand moved gingerly, as if to leave space for Mr. Gore to contemplate his next steps.

　　Yet, at the end of a trying and tumultuous process that had focused world attention onsleepless vote counters across Florida, and on courtrooms form Miami to Tallahassee to Atlantato Washington the Texas governor was set to become the 43d U. S. president.

　　The news of Mr. Gore’s plans followed the longest and most rancorous dispute over a U. S. presidential election in more than a century, one certain to leave scars in a badly dividedcountry.

　　It was a bitter ending for Mr. Gore, who had outpolled Mr. Bush nationwide by some 300000 votes, but, without Florida, fell short in the Electoral College by 271votes to 267—thenarrowest Electoral College victory since the turbulent election of 1876.

　　Mr. Gore was said to be distressed by what he and many Democratic activists felt was apartisan decision from the nation’s highest court.

　　The 5-to –4 decision of the Supreme Court held, in essence, that while a vote recount inFlorida could be conducted in legal and constitutional fashion, as Mr. Gore had sought, thiscould not be done by the Dec. 12 deadline for states to select their presidential electors.

　　James Baker 3rd, the former secretary of state who represented Mr. Bush in the Floridadispute, issued a short statement after the U. S. high court ruling, saying that the governorwas “very pleased and gratified.”

　　Mr. Bush was planning a nationwide speech aimed at trying to begin to heal the country’s deep, aching and varied divisions. He then was expected to meet with congressional leaders, including Democrats. Dick Cheney, Mr. Bush’s ruing mate, was meeting with congressmenWednesday in Washington.

　　When Mr. Bush, who is 54, is sworn into office on Jan.20, he will be only the second son of apresident to follow his father to the White House, after John Adams and John Quincy Adams inthe early 19th century.

　　Mr. Gore, in his speech, was expected to thank his supporters, defend his hive-week battle asan effort to ensure, as a matter of principle, that every vote be counted, and call for thenation to join behind the new president. He was described by an aide as “resolved andresigned.”

　　While some constitutional experts had said they believed states could present electors as lateas Dec. 18, the U. S. high court made clear that it saw no such leeway.

　　The U.S. high court sent back “for revision” to the Florida court its order allowing recounts butmade clear that for all practical purposes the election was over.

　　In its unsigned main opinion, the court declared, “The recount process, in its features heredescribed, is inconsistent with the minimum procedures necessary to protect thefundamental right of each voter.”

　　That decision, by a court fractured along philosophical lines, left one liberal justice chargingthat the high court’s proceedings bore a political taint.

　　Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in an angry dissent:” Although we may never know withcomplete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s presidential election, the identityof the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartialguardian of the law.”

　　But at the end of five seemingly endless weeks, during which the physical, legal andconstitutional machines of the U. S. election were pressed and sorely tested in ways unseenin more than a century, the system finally produced a result, and one most Americans appearedto be willing at lease provisionally to support.

　　The Bush team welcomed the news with an outward show of restraint and aplomb.

　　Thegovernor’s hopes had risen and fallen so many times since Election night, and the legalwarriors of each side suffered through so many dramatic reversals, that there was little energyleft for celebration.

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