She hasn't sung yet

While most Hoosiers slept early Wednesday morning, two men waited. In a night that would prove to be one of the most compelling political dramas in decades, both would suffer heartbreak and elation, followed by more waiting.\nVice President Al Gore was forced to accept a defeat he didn't really suffer, and Texas Gov. George W. Bush is still agonizing whether he would eek out a victory in the state where his younger brother is governor.\nA tight race all night, supporters of presidential contenders Gore and Bush rallied into the early morning hours. At about 2 a.m., the major television networks -- led by CNN -- announced that Bush had won Florida's 25 electoral votes, which would close the gap to the all-important 270 electoral votes.\nNewspapers around the country -- including the venerable The New York Times -- reported Bush's win on their Web sites.\nThe vice president called Bush and conceded, then prepared to take the stage to make a public statement. As millions waited for the concession speech, everything changed.\nThe first sign of trouble came from a CNN anchor who questioned the numbers she had been broadcasting. Then Florida's Secretary of State told CNN that the race was not over. The evidence mounted that the numbers in Florida and elsewhere were still in the air. What ensued among the national news media can only be described as panic.\nAcross the country, editors issued orders to stop press runs, reporters scrambled to confirm the newest development, and Web editors hurried to yank stories proclaiming Bush's victory.\nBloomington's The Herald-Times ran thousands of copies with the headline, "It's Bush." It was not alone. The New York Post, The Boston Herald, The Herald (Miami), The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman were among the newspapers that declared Bush the winner.\nBy 3:45, no national news organization was still heralding a Bush victory.\nAnd by the time everyone awoke, most signs of the chaos of the previous night had disappeared. Save for a few newspaper readers who got the wrong story.