Lando 
On the legal front, in Round I of the case in the US Supreme Court, the Court took the very rare step of neither affirming or reversing the Florida Supreme Court's decision in favor of Gore. Instead, the US SC "vacated" the lower court's decision, and did so unanimously. (My brief, filed in that case, was the only one which urged the Court to vacate or strike the decision below, and do nothing else.)
The Fla SC then took the case up again. This time they ruled for Gore, but split 4-3 rather than their original unanimous decision. The Chief Judge of the Florida SC warned in dissent that the US SC would not accept what they were trying to do.
The US SC then took the case again, on an emergency basis, and ruled 7-2 that the Fla SC had violated the US Constitution. The "5-4 decision" that the press and other Democrats like to cite, had to do with how to remedy the errors of the Fla SC, not whether it had made legal errors.
The general proposition the case stands for is this: it violates the US Constitution for any court to apply different rules to different parts of an election. Unfortunately, only four Justices of the Court were willing to reach a broader, clearer conclusion, namely that courts do not have the power to change the rules for elections after the election process has begun.
Had the Court reached that clear decision, it would not have permitted the atrocity in New Jersey where the corrupt Sen. Torricelli resigned late in the day, and Lautenberg was sneaked in, contrary to NJ law, at the last moment. But I digress.
Also on the general discussion, be sure to say that there were three official recounts, and Gore lost all of them. There were also two unofficial recounts done by the press. The first was done by Florida newspapers; the second was done by a consortium of at least ten newspapers, lead by the New York Times. Both of these unofficial recounts also concluded that Gore lost.
To combine the legal and pragmatic sides, the Gore people in the US SC were asking it to continue the recount beyond the date set by Florida law. Had they WON that case and had the recount continue, Gore STILL would have lost, per the one-year analysis done by the New York Times.
In short, if you get into details rather than dealing in slogans, Gore lost and Bush won under all of the scenarios. Neither the actual US SC ruling, nor would the reverse of that ruling have, "allowed" or "caused" Bush to be elected President. It requires deliberate and aggressive ignorance for anyone to believe that the US SC controlled the 2000 election.
Is that, plus my colleague's comments to you, sufficient to counterattack the liberal you're dealing with? Hope so.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "Says the Wuss: Ma, He's Touching Me"
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Lando