More from Tallahassee

And sure enough, when I got to the crush of lawyers and spectators jockeying for seats in the too-small courtroom, I saw him: Kendall Coffey, the decaffeinated lawyer, the Democrat Party operative who blew Elian's case while saying he was so upset by Clinton-Gore-Reno conduct that he was going to re-register as a Republican.

Saturday he was in the courtroom for Al Gore, who is more likely than Decaf Coffey to switch parties. In fact, Al, try that next. It might pick you up the 3 electoral votes you need.

During the luncheon recess from Judge Sauls' proceedings, I ate with Larry Klayman and his Judicial Watch stalwarts. With us was a top legal aide to Texas Gov. Bush, in from Austin.

I handed this bright, pleasant man my letter sent to the Florida Supreme Court this week about the unethical deceptions of Gore's lead attorney, David Boies.

Bush's attorney said, "Wow! This is great! Why won't the media cover this false affidavit story?"

I looked at him, and two voices inside me did battle. One was my activist voice, the other my mother's I heard as a child: "Be nice to people, Jack. Don't hurt their feelings."

My mother's won out, as what I wanted to say and what he wouldn't want to hear was: "The reason the media is not covering Boies' deceptions is the fact that you folks haven't gone after him and his lies."

Proof: At an impromptu press conference held by the rotund Joe Klock, a Democrat loyalist lawyer representing Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris, I asked him, with 20 cameras and mikes stuck in his face: "Why has the Bush team not gone back to the Florida Supreme Court with the proof that Boies has submitted a false affidavit regarding the Illinois dimpled chad case upon which the Court based its ruling?"

Klock's answer: "The Supreme Court knows about it from watching TV." Really? Does anybody think these seven liberal judges are watching Fox News or reading NewsMax.com?

The most powerful man in America this Sunday morning is Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls. Forget about the U.S. Supreme Court. This homespun jurist is a one-man Electoral College.

If he denies Gore the victory he desperately needs in this "contest phase" of the post-election crisis, then the veep had better start getting ready to move out of Dick Cheney's new home.

My close-up observation of Judge Sauls is that he knows how key he is, but he isn't conveying any of the high-and-mightiness that often comes from puffed-up judges.

It seems fitting, to this observer, that a robed judge who must be fair may snatch the presidency from the larcenous hands of a man who dropped out of law school.