Tampabay.com
JUNE 03, 2008

Harris' Recount review: 'Kind of outrageous'

Still mad at the media: Former Secretary of State Katherine Harris went on Hannity & Colmes Monday to protest her portrayal in Recount, the HBO film about the 2000 presidential election in Florida. With her was Joe Klock, the Democratic managing partner at from Steel, Hector & Davis, who headed up Harris' legal team during those wild five weeks, which gave the TV appearance a weird retro feel.

The ex-congresswoman's complaint is that filmmakers rewrote history by making other key characters, like Bush adviser James Baker, lappear strong, while she was portrayed by Laura Dern as unhinged by comparison and quoting Queen Esther in the Bible. "They make up my dialogue. The writer admits to making up scenes and dialogue, and it's kind of outrageous," she said. "I was never giddy."

Harris and Klock both objected to scenes from the movie showing veteran GOP operative J.M. (Mac) Stipanovich in the room with Harris. "The fact of the matter is that Mac Stipanovich did not sit in on any significant decisions," Klock told Fox. "The secretary sat with her lawyers and her team and made decisions on the spot." (News accounts at the time, in Newsweek and elsewhere, quoted Klock as saying Stipanovich was advising Harris as an "old family friend.")

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