The Dynamic Duo

Ok, here we get into some territory where Johnny and I definitely disagree. I am actually quite busy right now with a couple of projects, and trying to reorganize the office to cut down on distractions; but I’ll try to take a few minutes to rebut Johnny’s attack on my statement with sources cited.

First in regards to the stole our throne comment. I do not deny that there is controversy surrounding the topic, but Johnny saying that the count came in and Bush won is, as far as I know not a very accurate statement. To get a detailed and well told review of the election controversy from an, in my opinion, liberal but very fair source, I recommend that you pick up Michael Moore’s “Stupid White Men”, much of my material is gleaned from that source.

I would first like to point out some things that the Bush camp did before Election Day.

“In the summer of 1999 Katherine Harris, an honorary Stupid White Man who was both George W Bush’s presidential campaign chairwoman and the Florida secretary of state in charge of elections, paid $4 million to Database Technologies to go through Florida’s voter rolls and remove anyone “suspected” of being a former felon. She did so with the blessing of the governor of Florida, George W.’s brother Jeb Bush-whose own wife was caught by immigration officials trying to sneak $19,000 worth of jewelry into the country without declaring and paying tax on it…a felony in its own right. But hey, this is America. We don’t prosecute felons if they’re rich or married to a governing Bush.”

Since 31% of all black men in Florida have a felony on their record, and over 90% of black voters (that were allowed to vote) voted for gore, this took away a large number of potential votes from Gore. This is however, the law in Florida, and I’m not here to debate that. I do however find this information disturbing:

“In what appears to be a mass fraud committed by the state of Florida, Bush, Harris, and company not only removed thousands of black felons from the rolls, they also removed thousands of black citizens who had never committed a crime in their livesalong with thousands of eligible voters who had committed only misdemeanors.”

There are a lot more details that can be discussed about this, but I didn’t write the book, and I can’t and don’t want to quote the whole story, but consider this:

“George W. Bush would officially be credited with receiving 537 more votes than Al Gore in Florida. Is it safe to assume that the thousands of registered black and Hispanic voters barred from the polls might have made the difference if they had been allowed to vote-and cost Bush the election? Without a doubt. ”

Before the counting of votes had been completed, an executive of Fox decided to call the election in favor of bush. The other networks, the Associated Press a notable exception, followed suit, fearing being scooped. Who was it that made the call to declare Bush the winner before the masses? John Ellis, a first cousin of George W. and Jeb Bush.

“Once Ellis made the call and everyone followed suit, there was no going back-and nothing was more psychologically devastating for Gore’s chances of winning than the sudden perception that HE was being the spoiler by asking for recounts, withdrawing his concession of defeat, tying up the courts with lawyers and lawsuits. The truth is that during all of this, Gore actually was aheadhe had the most votes-but that was never how the media played it. ”

The book goes on and on about this issue, but I’ll finish this point up with this:

“All the pressure worked on the wimpy, spineless Democrats. They choked. While appearing on Meet the Press, vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman argued that the Democrats should stop creating a fuss and not be bothered that hundreds of military ballots were being counted, just because they weren’t “postmarked.”

Lieberman, like so many others among this new breed of Democrats, should have fought for principle instead of worrying about image. Why? Well, as the New York Times found out:

• 344 ballots had no evidence that they were cast on or before Election Day
• 183 ballots were postmarked in the United States
• 96 ballots lacked appropriate witness information
• 196 ballots came from unregistered voters, had envelopes that weren’t signed properly, or came from people who hadn’t requested a ballot
• 5 ballots came after the November 17 deadline
• 19 overseas voters voted on two ballots—and had both counted

All of these ballots violated Florida law, yet they were all counted. Can I say this any louder? Bush didn’t win! Gore did. It has nothing to do with chads, or even the blatant repression of Florida’s African-American community and their right to vote. It was a simple matter of breaking the law, all documented, all the evidence sitting there in Tallahassee, clearly marked without question—and all done purposefully to throw the election to Bush. ”

As for Bush’s approval ratings Johnny, you are flat wrong. Bush has seen his approval rating steadily decline (we are not talking ups and downs here, we are talking a steady decline) from a rating of over 80% immediately after 9-11 to (from three different sources, take your pick:) 58%, 55%, or 52%. I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty sure that Clinton compared favorably to this rating most of the time. Let me know if I am mistaken. At any rate, I don’t think 55% can be considered “pretty dang high”.

About whom I prefer between Gore and Bush? I really think it was a vote between the lesser of two evils, however if those were my only two choices, I would have voted for Gore. I really don’t think Gore is better in very many regards. I think that he would be raping the environment and catering to big business just like Bush is. The difference there is that Gore wouldn’t have been so damned offensive while doing it. I also don’t think that we would be looking at imminent war with Iraq if Gore was in the White House.

Finally your comment about the UN… I don’t necessarily think that the U.S. is wrong because members of the U.N. disagree with it. However, if it were just France disagreeing with the U.S. you’d have a lot stronger case. The fact is that even after seeing the evidence that Bush has presented; some of which we are not party to, thus my looks to world leaders as a weathervane for the value of this evidence; most world leaders are against the war. I see very few diplomatic efforts from the White House, and I don’t support using our military to revenge George’s old man. Give me some real evidence that we should be there, and that war is the only recourse, and I’ll support it.