Presidential Death Wish?

By: Vindictive | 27November2000

Three weeks ago, had someone put a gun to my head and forced me to choose between two evils -- the not-so-slimy, dim bulb George W. Bush; or the more slimy, brighter Al Gore -- I probably would have chosen Gore. It seemed to me, as dangerous as the world is, that it would be slightly better to have a capable person in office, even if I wouldn't trust the bastard to drop a cash deposit off at the bank for me. (On the other hand, a moron wouldn't have gotten so far unless he knew to surround himself with intelligent people. ) Or I might have flipped a coin. Then election day finally came. The people who could stomach doing so cast their lots. The race was so close, it quickly became apparent that the process of counting votes is embarrassingly sloppy. The ballot-counting machines had a margin of error greater than the difference in counts between the candidates. Hand counting could be influenced by the political interests of those doing the counting. When it became apparent that there was going to be a problem determining an accurate tally of votes, which of the two major party candidates attempted to initiate talks with the other, to find some kind of universal standard they would both support for counting all votes as accurately as possible? Gore did...but only if the entire state of Florida was recounted by hand. A Bush supporter makes a poignant point about the US. Republican protesters bussed in from other parts of the country have now successfully intimidated the Miami-Dade county canvassing board into giving up on a hand recount of their ballots. George W. Bush and Al Gore are both guilty of being more interested in doing whatever is necessary to gain power than they are interested in determining what the voters actually decided. Nearly three weeks after the election, both political parties are still trying to influence the ultimate outcome by deciding whose votes should not be counted, i.e., by selectively disenfranchising citizens. We will never know exactly how many votes any presidential candidate actually would have received if every qualified citizen had his/her choices recorded properly. Furthermore, neither candidate feels it is in his best interest for us to find out. I have decided, however, that had I been forced to choose between the two major party candidates on November 7th, and if I had made my choice on the basis of intelligence, I would probably have chosen incorrectly. On November 15th, a Tallahassee attorney named Mark Herron -- one of those helping the Democrats with their post-election lawsuits -- sent a five-page memo to other Democratic attorneys in Florida. It contained tips on how to lodge official protests against overseas military absentee ballots, in order to have them disqualified on any technicality possible, real or imaginary. Armed with this information, Democratic lawyers and operatives went though computer printouts of servicepeople who had voted in the past, matching names with party affiliation, so they would know which ballots to scrutinize. As a result, over 40 percent of these military absentee ballots were disqualified. Since only Republican-affiliated ballots were reviewed, it is safe to assume that all of the ballots tossed out came from voters who had voted for Republicans in the past. When that news got out, the Democrats had a bit of a public relations problem, so they sent vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman -- Doctor Jekyl to Gore's Mister Hyde, the theoretically principled one that balances the dirtbag -- to do the Sunday talk-shows. On NBC's Meet the Press, the trained monkey said "The vice president and I would not tolerate a campaign that was aimed specifically at invalidating ballots from members of our armed services..." Lieberman said he wasn't aware of a Democratic strategy to protest overseas absentee ballots. When asked about Herron's memo, Lieberman responded that it wasn't intended to be focused on military personnel. Perhaps not, if we ignore references in the memo to 'Armed Forces', 'Army Post Office', 'Fleet Post Office' and 'Military Post Office'. If he "would not tolerate" these actions, he would have been talking to Democratic operatives in Florida, not to talk show hosts. In other words, Joseph Lieberman is a liar! Don't let that upset you too much. Being a liar is a prerequisite of running for national office. Would George W. Bush's campaign have tried to disenfranchise citizens who also happen to be active duty military, if the military vote traditionally favored Democratic candidates? Possibly, but only if ex-POW John McCain left the country without a forwarding address. Gore attorney David Boies turns to props in a futile attempt to explain why military votes shouldn't count. The Democrats had already proved themselves hostile to the voting rights of soldiers. Last year, under the leadership of a Democratic president, the Defense Department issued a directive to all military commanders. It stated that no DOD facility could be used as a polling place, even though some had been used for that purpose for decades. In spite of the fact that there is no history of American voters being intimidated by people in uniform, and all 50 states ban electioneering near polls, the stated reason behind the directive was that it was supposed to prevent intimidation of voters by military authorities. Congress heard about this directive and passed a bill in July to prohibit DOD from closing any polling places during the current election season. Without that bill, servicepersons stationed on remote bases in the Alaska tundra or the Utah desert would probably have been unable to vote at all. A bill has been introduced that would permanently bar the Pentagon from closing polling places on military bases, but the Clinton administration is opposing it and is stealthily attempting to bury it during the lame-duck session. As a person with opinions that usually fall between libertarian and anarchist, I have long believed that if I could skin nearly any politician, I would find a dictator underneath. It has been sad, but entertaining to watch the unmasking of George W. Bush and Al Gore from pre-election sweet, citizen-loving, supporters of fairness and democracy into their truer natures. Two major characteristics separate servicepeople from most civilians: (1) They know how to follow orders, and (2) They are trained to use weapons to defend democracy from dictators. Al Gore is the presidential candidate of the party that has succeeded in disenfranchising thousands of overseas military voters. He has done nothing to stop it. Either he does not realize the possible consequences of allowing this to happen (i.e., he is an idiot) or the man has a death wish. Gawd help him if he becomes president and just one soldier momentarily forgets the importance of following orders. If George worked at it, he could prove himself to be more moronic than Al. First, he would have to take away the voting rights of the Secret Service...