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Media
recount boosts Gore Vice President Al Gore topped George W. Bush by 120 votes in an unofficial look at Hillsborough County's disputed presidential ``undervotes'' by The Tampa Tribune. Gore captured 999 votes and Bush, the president-elect, gained 879 votes in the first manual recount of Hillsborough's 5,533 ballots that machines could not read. Results in Hillsborough, one of the most hotly contested Gore- Bush battlegrounds, are a microcosm of how Bush's razor-thin Florida margin could have changed if some 60,000 disputed undervotes in 67 counties were examined by hand statewide. Susan MacManus, political science professor at the University of South Florida, said the results will still be disputed, even once historical perspective is gained. ``There's always going to be controversy about the standards used. People will say different standards were used by different media,'' she said. Hillsborough is significant because it had Florida's fourth-highest number of undervotes, after Miami-Dade's 10,750, Palm Beach's 10,582 and Broward's 6,686. Sometimes, machines miss votes on these ballots when, for example, a chad isn't fully dislodged from a punch card. News organizations, including The Miami Herald and a consortium led by The New York Times, are conducting statewide reviews of these ballots. Results are not expected for several weeks. News executives say the purpose is to clear up lingering questions. So far, the only other results show Gore gained 130 unofficial votes in Lake County, according to a review by The Orlando Sentinel. Republicans, meanwhile, denounced the latest Hillsborough numbers, and Democrats exulted. ``We carried the county by 11,000 votes, so let Gore have his few votes. Who really cares?'' said Margie Kincaid, Hillsborough's GOP chairwoman. ``I think the media spent their money for nothing. It's all pretty silly and it's not going to change anything. It's just going to confuse a lot of people. It's just an exercise in futility.'' But Hillsborough Democratic Chairman Mike Scionti said the results ``make sense.'' He predicted statewide results of the media recount will show Gore won Florida by 20,000 votes. Undervotes were at the center of a legal storm in last month's 36-day presidential election stalemate in Florida. With the White House at stake, Gore wanted undervotes counted by hand while the Bush camp was opposed, saying the statewide vote was counted twice, on election night Nov. 7 and the next day because results were too close to call. The Florida Supreme Court ordered undervotes counted by hand in a victory for Gore on Dec. 8. But the U.S. Supreme Court stopped it the next day. Three days later, justices said there was no uniform standard for deciding whether dimples, hanging chad and pinpricks were really votes. In the Hillsborough recount, journalists examined each of the 5,533 undervote ballots by hand, checking for dimples, pinpricks, hanging chad and clear punches on the data-processing cards punched by voters to register their choices for elective office. The Tribune spent 19.5 hours sorting through the ballots, finishing a count on Friday that began on Dec. 21 and continued at the county election service center on Dec. 22 and Dec. 28. The newspaper and other news organizations paid $58.12 per hour for election workers to hold up the ballots for counting. Florida law makes ballots public documents available for inspection, but they can only be handled by election officials. Brad Smith can be reached at bsmith@tampatrib.com259-7365 CAMBRIDGE DIARISTAll Too Human by Martin Peretz
In theory, the principle animating the Bush campaign in Florida was that votes should be counted by objective machines-- no interference from biased and fallible human beings. But, in practice, the Bushies' preference was not for technology over humans but for their humans over anyone else's. For instance, in Seminole and Martin Counties, where Republican election officials allowed Republican operatives to doctor absentee-ballot applications, while Democrats were not granted the same right. And in Tallahassee, where, months before the election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris hired a highly suspect, GOP-connected database company to purge the state's voter rolls of thousands of mostly minority citizens, many of whom it falsely categorized as felons. And in Austin, where Jeb Bush worked the phones on election night in a last-ditch effort to make sure Florida went his brother's way. And in Nassau County, where Republican election officials rejected the results of the machine recount, thereby adding 51 votes to Bush's margin. Did James Baker object to this rank subjectivity? Did Harris cry out against this human interference? No: Harris certified the new result, and Baker quietly played along. But don't despair. The Bush campaign rediscovered its devotion to machines in time to savage the hand counts in Democratic Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach Counties--hand counts that would almost certainly have handed Al Gore the presidency. Baker held press conference after press conference to explain the virtue of voting machines. Yet if Florida has taught us anything, it is just how unreliable those machines are. Especially the machines used in Democratic areas--which represented the real "equal protection" question our esteemed Supreme Court refused to touch. Two counts of one precinct's votes by the same antiquated machine often produce two different results. Hand counts conducted by people of honesty and goodwill--character traits with which the Bushies, needless to say, are not overly acquainted--are much more reliable. Nobody has quite accused Baker, Jeb Bush, or Harris of the sin of simony in their efforts to get the Miami-Dade election supervisors to void the votes of their own constituents. But what else could the Florida Supreme Court have been thinking when it stipulated that Miami-Dade's ballots be scrutinized not by its usual canvassers but by court officials? In any case, given the magnitude of the theft that has occurred, the whole story will come out, sooner rather than later. This is a grand crime against democracy, and it was committed by a candidate whose overriding campaign claim was that he could be trusted. Once the story of Florida 2000 is known in full, George W. Bush may well wish he had become baseball commissioner rather than president. But not yet. For now, Bush remains "excited ... excited about the potential" of being president. He expressed surprise at receiving congratulations from so many heads of state, as if maybe he didn't realize quite how many there were. But, his ignorance notwithstanding, Bush is already learning to be imperious. When asked at a photo-op about House Speaker Dennis Hastert's opposition to his huge and hugely irresponsible $1.3 trillion, across-the-board tax cut, the president-elect responded: "I have made it clear to the speaker once before that, you know, I campaigned on a package that I thought was fair and fiscally sound and responsible." And, later that day, Hastert changed his tune and fell obligingly into line. Al Gore's elegant and eloquent short talk congratulating Bush on his election was actually painful for me to hear. In Texas, Bush is widely known as "the great executioner." His death chamber is, as The New York Times pointed out this week, the busiest in the nation. But now he has another mantle: He is the great usurper. It's true that he's not the first dynastic president--John Quincy Adams also inherited from his father a first name, a last name, and a spot in the Oval Office. But Adams was a truly great man: intellectually imaginative, philosophically deep, politically brave. By contrast, George W. is our first true dauphin: truly unserious, remarkably undistinguished, designated only because he is the eldest son of the last chief executive to produce a line of hopefuls and because his father's friends paved his path to the White House with campaign finance gold. For once, even the talking heads seemed to appreciate Gore's speech, its grace and its deep feeling for democratic continuity. Even Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson appreciated it, and Bill Schneider and Tim Russert, too. To be sure, they'd been waiting for Gore to give up ever since they stayed up late on November 7 misinforming the nation about the results of the election. And, like others in the dreary CNN/Fox/CNBC commentariat, they had wished him ill long before that. But, even in their satisfaction at Gore's defeat, they couldn't suppress their long-resisted admiration for the originality and intellectual coherence of his views. They will have reason to recall these rare and valuable traits every time they hear our next president utter the commonplace phrases he mistakes for ideas. In his speech to the nation, Gore cited the phrase inscribed above the portals of the Harvard Law School library: NON SUB HOMINE SED SUB DEO ET LEGE, "Not under man but under God and law." In the very same place, some students at the law school have now unfurled a banner expressing their fury at the Court they were taught to revere. Their banner says NOT UNDER GOD OR LAW BUT UNDER REHNQUIST. As it happens, Chief Justice William Rehnquist's career of limiting citizens' access to the voting booth goes back many years. An article by Dennis Roddy with the headline "just our bill," which appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on December 2 (and is accessible on the Web at www.post-gazette.com), recounts how in the election of 1964 the then-youngish Republican lawyer William Rehnquist intimidated blacks and immigrants in Phoenix, Arizona, from exercising suffrage. Then he did it as the thuggish boss of an insidious project called "Operation Eagle Eye." Now he does it in a long black robe from behind the great bench. Neither my son Jesse nor I put much stock in the prophecies of Nostradamus. Especially when Nostradamus's "prophecies" come from the Web, which has a tendency to manufacture quotes for occasions like these. But I'll share the "quotation" from the medieval prognosticator that Jesse e-mailed me anyway, because, whoever penned them, the words couldn't be more true, or more sad: Come the millennium, month twelve, MARTIN PERETZ is editor-in-chief and chairman of TNR.
Please note that these editorial articles do not necessarily reflect the position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are the personal opinions of the author and he is alone responsible for them. by W. John Walsh, posted on www.mormons.org The purpose of this article is discuss my views on the recently contested American Presidential election. To be concise and clear, I believe the Unites States of America, the undisputed leader of the free world, is in serious danger of losing its democracy. To me, it seems clear that a group of evil, conspiring men has taken over the Republican party and is likely to soon seize control of the country. While the tone of this article may seem overly dramatic to some, let's call the current events what they really are: a coup. Before I start discussing specifics, I would like to make a couple of disclaimers. My problem with what is happening in the American Presidential election is not really about who will become President. When it comes to policy, I am far closer to George W. Bush than I am to Al Gore. For example, Gore supports abortion rights, while Bush opposes them. I oppose abortion in all cases, with no exceptions. I believe that since Christ gave his life for us, any woman not prepared to give her life for her child is not fit for the Kingdom of God. Gore opposes school choice (i.e., vouchers), while Bush supports it. I will be home schooling my children and want to spend my tax dollars in my own home and not down the street at the public schools which I will never use. Also, let me make it clear that my issue is not that Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral college. Whether you espouse the election system mandated by our constitution or not, it is clear that the electoral college is the present legal way we do things. I am concerned with the process, not the platforms or positions. I am a great believer in democracy and the right of the citizens of a country to choose their own leaders. What the leader will do is far less important than whether the leader has been legitimately chosen by the people. Even though I may agree with Bush on some positions, I cannot accept him as the leader of this nation unless he actually received the most votes. After examining the evidence and studying the issues, I have no doubt that Gore won the electoral college as well as the popular vote. To put it simply: it all comes down to Florida. Did more people vote for Gore in Florida or did more people vote for Bush? I don't mean did more people intend to vote for Gore. I mean out of the people who actually showed up on election day and voted, who got the most votes? This is how we judge the winner of elections in America. At least, this is how we are supposed to declare winners. I think it is indisputable that Al Gore had more actual votes cast for him in Florida. The only issue is whether "voting irregularities" have voided (at least for the moment) those votes and therefore deprived American citizens of their right to elect leaders of their own choice. It's important to note that at no time has anyone from the Republican side actually claimed that any substantial portion of the disputed ballots were cast for Bush. Their position is relatively simple: they know the votes were cast for Gore (at least the vast majority of them), they just want to find some way to legally exclude them from the totals. That someone would take this position is absolutely amazing to me. That American citizens did not have their votes properly recorded and were therefore deprived of their constitutional right is not the only thing that bothers me. In addition to trying to disqualify the votes of American citizens who voted for other candidates, Bush actively tried to intimidate people from voting. His supporters called people and gave them false information about what was required to vote to discourage them from going to the polls. That these calls were made is indisputable. Can we prove that Bush was responsible for them? Perhaps we may never tie him personally to these actions from a legal point of view, but he can be directly tied from a moral perspective. I believe sins of omission bring one into the collective guilt of those performing evil acts. For example, after World War II, there were many German citizens who claimed they had no knowledge of the death camps or what happened there. Others claimed they knew what happened, but they could not stop it or do anything about it, so they just continued on with their lives. In my view, God morally obligates us to speak out against evil. By not speaking out, those citizens took upon themselves the collective guilt. Likewise, people trying to get Bush elected performed some evil acts. Now that Bush has been made aware of what happened, he has the obligation to speak out against it and offer recompense as far as it is within his power to do so. In my view, his failure to even publicly condemn the acts makes him as guilty as those who performed them. CNN reports, "James Baker, the balloting observer for Bush, said earlier today that Bush will 'vigorously oppose' the Democratic challenger's recounting efforts." Why is that? Doesn't George Bush want to make sure that every vote is properly counted? After all, we have already seen some problems. The original count in New Mexico gave the state to Gore, but a recount may give it to Bush. Florida, the state which will decide the election, started with almost 1800 votes separating the candidates. After the recount, we are presently down to 327 (though this number may still change). Bush realizes that if all votes which were actually cast for Gore are counted, he will lose. ABCNews.com reported on 11/24/00 that Republican party operatives organized protests against counting the ballots in Dade and Broward County, but represented them as spontaneous protests from local citizens. These protests were influential in stopping the Dade County manual recounts. The protestors were most influential as they crashed through the doors and loudly demanded the recounts be ended. This behavior is not a normal and acceptable part of the democractic process. They are protesting the counting of votes! That is a necessary element of democracy. How shall we have the people rule if we do not count the votes indicating the people's will? If we allow some people to prevent others from voting or having their vote be counted our form of government becomes an oligarchy, or more accurately, mobocracy. Mr. Bush has not decried this attack on the basic elements of democracy. He and his campaign had no comment for ABC. As I watch Bush and his co-conspirators, I am truly sickened by what I see. Bush has tried to declare votes illegal which almost certainly have gone to his opponent. He has accepted the actions of his supporters who made phone calls to discourage potential Gore supporters from voting. He is not concerned with what the voters have said, but only what he thinks they should have said. We can tell this because he has inhibited the counting process and democracy by having his lawyers issue subpeonas to the canvassing board and by threatening the counters that they would be named in his lawsuits. He has no public criticism for the Republican party operatives who successfully intimidated Dade County from finishing the manual recount. All of these actions are appalling and flagrant abuses against democracy. It's no secret that Latter-day Saints, including myself, almost exclusively vote Republican. If you are a member of the Church, I would encourage you to rethink very carefully about how you vote in the future. God will hold you accountable for the choices you make. It is common for Latter-day Saints to believe that if we share the same view on abortion or some other issue with someone, then that is what is most important. This is false. When it comes to government, the most important issue is freedom. The LDS Articles of Faith state:
Freedom is the preeminent doctrine of the gospel, more important than any other doctrine including righteousness. Remember, in the Council in Heaven, it was Lucifer's goal to force us to be righteous. It was Heavenly Father's plan that we be allowed to choose between good and evil for ourselves. By his own actions, Heavenly Father told us freedom, even if we would choose wrong, was more important than compelled righteousness. Over the years, I have seen a growing pattern of corruption, coercion, and hypocrisy enter the Republican party (e.g., McCarthyism, Watergate, Iran-Contra, etc.). Like Lucifer, these people desire to force us to follow their plan. Positions on social platforms such as abortion or same sex marriage are insignificant to the concept of freedom. Think back to the Counsel in Heaven -- what was Lucifer's plan? Follow me, I shall mandate that all shall be righteous and thus be saved. I shall force everyone to obey the commandments of God. While Heavenly Father wants us to obey his commandments, he wants it to be our choice without compulsion. And do the Republicans want us to have free choice? No, they believe that since they are the right choice (at least in their own minds), they should have the ability to enforce those right choices on everyone else. As I have listened to the rhetoric coming out from the Republican side, I have heard one theme over and over again. George Bush needs to become President because he is the right man and Al Gore is the wrong man. In my view, the right man to become President is the one who received the most votes, regardless of whether I share his philosophy or not. Don't be fooled into thinking that because you share some common views with someone it is acceptable to overthrow democracy and install a despot in its place. The conservative Christians who control the Republican party would enforce your views on abortion, pornography, and a host of other ills on society, but they would also burn every Book of Mormon and deprive every Latter-day Saint of their rights if they could as well. While this is indeed strong language, one simply has to type in the word Mormons in any search engine and see all the hate and filth that comes up. You would install their despot because he would appoint Supreme Court Justices opposed to abortion, but what will you do when he also decides to destroy our temples? I am reminded of a poem by the Reverend Martin Niemöller, a pastor in the German Confessing Church who spent seven years in a concentration camp. In Germany they first came for the Communists While I have voted Republican almost exclusively during my lifetime, from this time forward, I will not support a group so transparently disposed to follow Satan. ----- Since this article was written, I have received several responses to it. As I have time and inclination, I shall post rebuttals here: Marcus writes: "Do you think that the black and Hispanic communities, under-educated and poor are not being influenced by propaganda and garbage spewed out by Al Gore representatives? Do not kid yourself brother Walsh. Al Gore is not the man we need to run this country...Made me question your membership and loyalty to the church for a second." So if I understand your views correctly, you believe that Black and Hispanic people are too poor and uneducated to understand the issues and therefore do not deserve to vote? You believe that the views of the majority should be discounted in favor of the minority who really know what the nation needs? Well, this view explains why the Bush supporters felt the need to intimidate minorities into not voting This is not the first time that I have come across these unrighteous views. I find it more than interesting that your focus is on who you should be President, not who was actually elected. And you close by questioning my loyalty to the Church because I do not support an Evangelical Protestant for President. I don't have any desire to debate you. Your words stand on their own. As far as my views, I believe every American has the right to vote, even the so-called uneducated and poor minorities. Dan writes: "[The rule of law is paramount]... It is my understanding that the Democrats were rounding up old and poor people by the busloads to the voting stations which is all fine and good, as long as everyone is registered to vote and has the intelligence to find their candidate and properly fill out the ballot." In all honesty, the tone of your comments tend to make one believe that you don't really believe it's "fine and good" for old, poor people to vote. As far as the rule of law, you should know that it is actually required by law to have simple ballots that are not confusing. And many young, rich, and smart people complained about the ballots as soon as they saw them. Some even asked for help in completing them and were refused. I don't have any desire to debate you. Your words stand on their own. As far as my views, I believe every American has the right to vote, even the so-called old, poor, and stupid ones. Fred writes: "I would suspect that accusations of Democrats promising homeless persons a pack of cigarettes to vote for Al Gore (an event that occurred in Wisconsin) would be taken as an assault on the poor being unworthy to vote." First, vote buying is illegal and anyone, Democrat or Republican, who engages in it should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. However, as I heard the story, some people were given cigarettes just to vote regardless for whom they intended to vote. I see a large difference between encouraging someone to exercise their constitutional right to vote, even through inappropriate means such as gift-giving, and making threatening phone calls trying to intimidate people not to vote. It's comparing jaywalking to murder. I think it is very telling that when you step back and look at the bigger picture, the Democrats made very large efforts to get everyone to vote, including the poor, the old, the homeless, and the minorities. On the other hand, the Republicans made every effort to ensure that only the "elite" portion of the community votes. And that brings up the basic question: To which group did Jesus minister? As a personal aside, I live in a poor neighborhood filled that includes many minorities. We were contacted several times by the Democratic party and asked to vote. We were even offered a ride to the nearest voting location. Not if we voted for the Democratic ticket. There were no strings attached. We were just asked to perform our responsibilities as American citizens. A visitor writes: "The Republicans were just following the law. The votes all had to be counted by a certain deadline." Actually, that is incorrect. In a unanimous opinion, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the Secretary of State was wrong in her actions. By law, the recounts had to occur and also be counted. Jeff writes: "Why have you mixed politics in with religion?" Elder Melvin J. Ballard taught:
According to the teachings of our Church, it is a religious duty for Latter-day Saints to stand in defense of our Democracy. When the rights of the poor and downtrodden are trampled upon, it is a requirement of our faith to stand up for what is right. If we come to the point where we discount some segments of society, then like the Nephites in the Book of Mormon, we shall fall. It has been the Republican public position that the irregularities seen in Florida are just normal aberrations in the voting process. It seems clear to me that these irregularities seem to be targeted towards certain groups of people (e.g., poor, old, downtrodden, minorities, etc.). Since these people normally vote Democratic, it is no surprise that the Republicans do not want their votes to count. My position is simple. Count every vote. I don't care if everyone voted Republican. Every American should have the right to have their vote counted, regardless of the color of their skin or their economic condition. In addition to negative responses, I have rewceived some positive ones as well: Mr. Walsh, Sir,
Dear John, John, I just read your article on the election. As an
active LDS Democrat it
In our article about the recent election process, you
state... Brother Walsh, Our democracy is in serious threat and the Constitution is
being ignored To Latter-day Saints, I would again encourage you to carefully listen to the Republicans and what they are saying. Do you stand for Freedom or not? I encourage you to read the stories in the Book of Mormon about the Kingmen and the Gadianton Robbers. Listen to their words and compare them to the filth that comes from Republican tongues. If they decide the poor, old, illiterate, and minorities don't have the right to vote, at what point will they decide the Mormons don't either? To non Latter-day Saints, most of the comments you will see on this page come from members of my Church, I am embarrassed to say. On their face, you will see that some Latter-day Saints are extremely class and race prejudiced. Please understand that class and race prejudice is directly contrary to the teachings of our Church and those Latter-day Saints with such feelings are in violation of the will of God. Their feelings arise because of their unbelief, not their belief in the Savior and his teachings. (See Are Mormons Prejudiced?) An open letter to the Senators and Congressional Representatives of the United States, from the co-discoverer of Comet Hale-Boppby Alan Hale Dear Senators and Representatives, My name is Alan Hale. I live in the mountains of southern New Mexico, and if you saw that beautiful comet that was shining in our nighttime skies during the spring months of 1997, then you've heard of me. Perhaps you may also be aware that during the past eighteen months I have led two delegations of American scientists and students on "scientific diplomacy" expeditions to Iran. In any event, if you'll forgive my being so presumptuous, I'd like to take a few minutes of your time and share my thoughts on the events of the past two months. Long before I became known for finding a comet, I was a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, and spent a few years thereafter as an officer in the U.S. Navy. My military "career" was nothing to brag about, but my experiences from those years of my life have not been completely lost upon me. One thing I remember is the oath of office I took both when I entered the Naval Academy, and four years later when I graduated and received my commission. The first lines read: "I solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same." I believe that your oath of office contains pretty much the same language. Let's take a look at that Constitution of the United States. Its first three words were considered by its authors to be so important that they are written in far larger letters than any other words in that document. These three words are "We the People." These words are not "We the political parties." They are not "We the privileged few who have lots of money." They are not "We the partisan mob." In our governing document that we have all sworn our allegiance to, the founders of our nation made it absolutely clear with these three words that the true power of our government is to come from its people. We can look further. Thomas Jefferson, in our nation's Declaration of Independence, gave us the classic words: "[G]overnments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Perhaps former President Abraham Lincoln said it best, when in the midst of a hideous war that literally split this nation apart, showed honor to those who had fallen by stating that they had made their sacrifices so ". . . that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." I was raised to believe in these ideals, and I'd still like to believe in them. But as I've watched the events of the past two months unfold my beliefs in these ideals have been severely betrayed. This goes far beyond the individual candidates involved in the Presidential election, and who I may or may not have supported. No, it is clear that I am watching the complete unraveling of all the principles upon which our nation was founded, principles that I was proud to represent as an American when I have visited places like Iran. "We the People" chose a President for this nation. We, the governed, did not consent to have the political parties, or the Supreme Court, or a mob controlled by partisan Congressmen, intervene and choose our President for us. The installation of a President who was "selected" in this manner in defiance of the expressed will of the people spits in the face of everything we have been taught to believe in, dishonors the Constitution to which we've sworn our allegiance, and insults the memories of all those who have sacrificed so much for our nation. But there is a solution. Title 3, Chapter 1, Article 15 of the U.S. Code states that when the Senators and Congressional Representatives certify the electoral votes on January 6, any Senator, together with any Congressional Representative, can challenge the electoral votes from any state for any reason. There is ample reason to challenge the votes from the state of Florida; the incredible reports of voting irregularities in that state -- with more coming to light almost every day -- and the media-initiated counting of previously-uncounted votes make it emphatically clear that the given electoral votes do not reflect the will of the people in that state, nor do they reflect the will of the people of this nation. I urge you in the strongest possible terms to challenge and reject the erroneous and illegitimate electoral votes from Florida. This will take immense courage, and will take our nation into some uncharted territory; but we are a strong nation, and we are capable of finding a solution that accurately reflects the wishes and consent of its people. But if we instead take the easy way out, we will have demonstrated to the world, to our children, and to history, that we are not worthy of the principles that we have always espoused, and we will have disgraced ourselves for all to see. You have an immense responsibility awaiting you on January 6. I hope that when you face that responsibility, you will remember the true power and authority behind our government, and that you will do the right thing by our nation's people. I thank you for your patience with me, and in closing I'd like to share a personal statement. The comet that bears my name will return in about 2400 years, and I've often wondered, both to myself and in public, just what kind of world will greet it at that time. We have such a long ways to go. Will we finally be free of war, of hatred, of bigotry, by then? Will we have matured enough as a species to be able to govern ourselves responsibly, and to be able to take care of our people, and our planet? There's only one way for us to find out. The answers begin with us, here, today. Very respectfully, Alan Hale Cloudcroft, New Mexico NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME Chavez flap is one more sign of Bushies' arrogence BY Paul Begala MSNBC Contributor January 8, 2001
So now we learn that Labor Secretary-designate Linda Chavez housed — and may have employed — an illegal alien. We don’t have enough information yet to discern whether this was a commendable act of charity or a criminal violation of the labor laws. And until more facts are in I’m not interested in passing judgment on Chavez. But this revelation does allow us to make some important judgments about Team Bush: THEY LIE:
I know that sounds harsh, but what else do you call it? The New York Times
reports that Bush spokesman Tucker Eskew “said Ms. Chavez was unaware of
the woman’s legal status at the time she was sheltering her and only
realized after she had departed from her home that she was here
illegally.” But that’s not what the woman in question says. Marta
Mercado told The Washington Post that she informed Chavez of her illegal
status about three months after moving into her home. And Chavez’s close
friend, Abigail Thernstrom, told the Times, “I’m pretty confident that
Linda did know” that Mercado was not legally in this country. As they never
tire of telling us, the Bushies don’t have extramarital affairs. They
save their lies for public affairs. Remember: “Read my lips.”
Remember: “I was out of the loop on Iran-Contra.” And who can forget:
“Clarence Thomas is the most qualified person in America for the Supreme
Court.” And Chavez was
far from alone. During the Baird case, and all the way through
impeachment, Republicans argued for a strict, unforgiving reading of the
law, invoking in pompous, pious tones, “The Rule of Law.” Let’s see
the same people who argued for Bill Clinton because he was reluctant to
admit an affair turn around and argue for leniency in the Chavez case. |