This afternoon brings the deadline for the final recounts of presidential ballots in Florida. Americans can only hope that the deadline also will mark at least the beginning of the end of this nasty, brutish and long presidential election.

After enduring so much ugliness and confusion over the past 19 days, no one could be naive enough to expect that the recount deadline will bring an end to all the nasty threats, overblown accusations and multiplying legal maneuvers that have degraded this contest. However, the American public, so remarkably patient until now, can begin to exert greater pressure on both sides to get this over with and get back to the people's business.

This uniquely close race between Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Democratic Vice President Al Gore has brought out the worst in both campaigns and their most rabid supporters, too many of whom have shown contempt for the truth, contempt for voters and contempt for the institutions of our democracy.

It is bad enough that Gore campaign officials repeatedly have promised to "keep our options open" if the official tally in Florida doesn't go their way. The Gore campaign intends to contest the state Supreme Court's denial of its petition to force Miami-Dade County to complete its manual recount, and it is still pursuing other legal avenues. Winning the presidency through successful court challenges could never substitute for the legitimacy of a fair and (to the extent possible) accurate vote count.

Far worse has been the destructive rhetoric of Republican partisans, including top officials of the Bush campaign. Their reckless criticism of Florida's Supreme Court, along with their baseless charges of vote fraud in the South Florida recounts, tear at the very fabric of our democracy.

Public officials and private citizens should be free to criticize court opinions with which they disagree, but it is irresponsible for Republican leaders to express contempt for the judiciary's proper constitutional role in a dispute such as this. No Democratic leader in memory has questioned the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear Bush's challenge of Florida's manual recounts, because seven of its nine members happen to have been nominated by Republican presidents. Yet U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott sneers about "unelected judges" in Florida who "usurp the right of the people to govern themselves." House Majority Leader Dick Armey and Majority Whip Tom DeLay joined Lott last week in publicly discussing ways to deny Gore the presidency even if he is declared the winner of Florida's decisive 25 electoral votes. For people who want at least four more years of the ill-tempered partisanship that has poisoned the atmosphere in Washington throughout the Clinton presidency, Armey, DeLay and Lott are their men.

The atmosphere is no better in Tallahassee. The inflammatory words of House Majority Leader Mike Fasano are all too typical: "Unlike the (state) Supreme Court, which was appointed by Democrats, the Florida Legislature has been elected by the people of Florida, and we will not allow the people's voice to be silenced." How, exactly, did the court silence the people's voice? By issuing a measured ruling that protected the voting rights of people in South Florida? How did it manifest its partisanship? By rejecting the Gore campaign's appeal of Miami-Dade's decision to shut down its recount?

It is strange enough that Fasano and many other fire-breathing Republican legislators consider themselves less partisan than Florida's Supreme Court justices, seven respected jurists who were chosen through a process of merit selection. It is even stranger the lawmakers would contemplate protecting "the people's voice" through drastic legislative intervention to override the people's votes.

This dark episode in American history is made all the more dispiriting by the emptiness at its core. Since Election Day, both campaigns have quit even pretending to stand for much of anything, except winning. And yet no one -- not even the clique that eventually occupies the White House -- can possibly emerge from this imbroglio a real winner.

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