I was greeted by what – even by Fox standards – was an amazing sight. Karl Rove had become embroiled in a heated debate with his own network about their decision to call Ohio and the Presidency for Barack Obama. It was too early, he said. There were still lots of votes to be counted. They had to be right, not first.

Not wishing to miss the opportunity for some fantastic television – even at their own expense – anchor Megan Kelly was dispatched to confront her network’s own decision desk. The startled analysts, who bore the excited but nervous demeanour of elves who'd been visited by their Snow Queen, assured Kelly that the call had been correct, and Ohio had indeed been held by the President. Rove, grudgingly, was forced to back down.

For students of modern US political history, this represented the closing of a circle. It was Rove’s successful effort to get Fox to reverse their call of Florida for Al Gore in 2000 that in many people’s eyes won George Bush the Presidency. Had the networks stuck with their original predictions, the recount saga would have been conducted against the backdrop of a narrow lead for Gore rather than for Bush, potentially with a very different outcome.