OU CANNOT HONESTLY consider yourself an American patriot if you do not sincerely wish the winner of our only national election a successful and effective four-year reign. And you cannot be even a half-decent American president if you do not comport yourself, at least most of the time, in a manner that merits the respect of the citizenry in general and your political opponents in particular.
With respect to the present dismal impasse in Florida, the citizenry is doing its part beautifully. There have been no riots, assassinations, no murder and no mayhem; there's not even been a punch thrown, so far as I've heard. This is model behavior for the passing of power in the mightiest nation in history.
Are the candidates measuring up to the responsibility that history imposed on them? Your view of that question is shaped by how you voted Nov. 7. In close to 400 e-mails, plus letters and phone calls, I've heard several earfuls from readers on the election.
Many of you were disappointed in my recommendation that Al Gore, if it turns out George W. Bush wins Florida with the absentees and the recounts, should congratulate Bush and bow out gracefully to spare the country the ordeal of legal challenges. Many Democrats among you subscribe to the Winston Churchill formula: ''Never give in, never give in, never give in.'' I don't. There's a time to give in, so as to live to fight another day.
But I think it is fair to say that Gore to date has handled himself with more aplomb and dignity than his Republican rival. Perhaps the fact I voted for Agony Al colors my judgment. But here's my argument. It was Bush who kick-started his transition-team act into motion, rekindling all of our doubts about his dreamy air of entitlement, surrounded by the Old Guard of his father's administration, voted out eight years ago.
It was Bush's handlers who made all the fuss initially about the Gore team getting ready to go to court (''hiss!''), and then, natch, it was the Bush-ites who raced to the courthouse first. Blaming the other guy for a maneuver you accomplished yourself is classic Bush Enterprises strategy. They did it with telling effect against Senator John McCain in the primary season and are running a sophisticated smokescreen operation again.
When we have a right to expect some dignity and restraint from our two presumptive presidents, frozen as they are now in Florida amber, they should both deliver. Gore's offer Wednesday night - to abide by a statewide Florida ballot recount and abjure any further legal action in any other state - was a reasonable, fair, and sensible move. That it may have been good politics, clever spin, or a last-ditch effort to forestall a Bush Jr. presidency. But it was also reasonable, fair, sensible.
Bush's refusal to abide by a Florida-wide recount gives away the insecurity of his position. His hiding behind the skirts of the Florida secretary of state, Kathleen Harris, is a naked political ploy. She is a Bush partisan, and the notion that this woman can pull the strings to deny the nation a Florida recount is sure to inflame that half of the electorate that thinks Gore has a right to a fair count.
Bush seems incapable of making the transition from political candidate to putative president. He seems not to comprehend that the public trust is something that, once squandered, can never be fully redeemed. His pledge to ''restore honesty and integrity to the White House'' is weakened daily as his underlings shuck and jive and strive desperately to forestall the full statewide recount that alone will restore faith in the process by which Florida's electoral votes determine the president.
Bush seems not to understand that wide swaths of this country - the West Coast, the whole of the Northeast above Virginia (save New Hampshire), and the Michigan-Illinois-Wisconsin-Iowa portion of the North rejected his candidacy. These voters have to be won over - they cannot be conquered.
Many of us are put off by Texas justice and Texas ways. We do not like the way Texas treats its citizens and its environment. I look at Bush Sr. and I see Willie Horton. I look at Bush Jr. and I see 145 hooded, manacled prisoners wheeled into death chambers, the latest of them another retarded man, as the metronome Texas guillotine drops again.
We do not like the way this election ended, nor did we like the way the networks blew the call. But we can live with a president who wins by an eyelash. It is not too much to ask that there be an honest count. And the fact that Bush refuses Gore's offer to abide by a statewide recount reinforces the suspicions of many of us that Dubbaya is not up to the job.
David Nyhan's e-mail address is nyhan@globe.com.
