There was a flavour of the Maoist ritual of public humiliation as Vice-President Al Gore presided over the final tally of electoral college votes on Saturday. The joint meeting of the Senate and House of Representatives confirmed the election of Governor George W. Bush as the 34th President by 271 votes to 266.
State by state, the four tellers read out the certified votes and 51 times Mr Gore asked solemnly "Are there any objections?" - once for each state and once for the District of Columbia. And it was Mr Gore who had to put down the minor rebellion when they reached Florida. Member after member of the Congressional Black Caucus and their supporters rose to make a point of order, objecting to the counting of the state's votes. The words "fraudulent" and "disenfranchised" were drowned out repeatedly in a sea of Republican jeers. Mr Gore asked each objector in turn whether their point of order was signed, as required by an 1877 law, by a member of each house.
It was a case of "water, water everywhere, but ne'er a drop to drink". The establishment had closed ranks to legitimise the Bush succession. In a room full of senators there was not one who would second the objections.
A plea by Representative Jesse Jackson jnr (Democrat, Illinois) that one should come forward now at the last minute met with silence. The Vice-President, in a rare departure from his script, looked down with a wry grin to the angry young man and shrugged his shoulders. "Hey!" he said to laughter.
Representative Alcee Hastings (Democrat, Florida) apologised to Mr Gore. "We did all we could, sir," he said. "The chair thanks the gentleman from Florida," Mr Gore replied as he moved on to the vote from Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois inexorably to Wisconsin. "May God bless our new President and our new Vice-President and may God bless America," he said closing the count to a standing ovation.
But if the senators were not prepared to engage this battle, the weekend saw them notching up a significant victory in securing a 50-50 power-sharing division of the political spoils. In a deal hatched between the Republican leader, Senator Trent Lott, and his Democratic counterpart, Senator Tom Daschle, both parties will share committee positions and staff allocations as well as the allocation of debate time.
Although the Senate is split exactly 50-50, the Republicans have kept control of it by virtue of the casting vote of the incoming Vice-President, Mr Dick Cheney. But their ability to force through legislation is still constrained by procedural rules, which means effectively that all major measures require support of 60 members to pass.
The agreement should at least give a hearing to the President-elect's legislative programme but will test the sincerity of his commitment to dialogue with Democrats. That will require serious concessions on the more radical elements of his programme.
The labour movement has signalled that it intends to oppose vigorously Mr Bush's nominee for Labour Secretary, Ms Linda Chavez. The new administration also faces serious challenges at congressional confirmation hearings which have just begun into two other nominees, Mr John Ashcroft (Attorney General), and Ms Gail Norton (Interior).
A controversial right-wing columnist, Ms Chavez is a prominent opponent of affirmative action and job quotas for minorities or women. She has ridiculed sexual harassment claims as being brought by "crybabies", has rejected the idea that women at work face a "glass ceiling" on promotions, and has described supporters of raising the minimum wage as Marxists.
Ms Chavez is the president of a Washington research organisation, the Centre for Equal Opportunity, which counterposes the "promotion of colour-blind equal opportunity" to racial or gender quotas.
"She has spent the last 20 years opposing just about every important programme, from the minimum wage to affirmative action to so many things important to working families," Mr John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said.