The U.S. national media are missing the most important story of the
year, if not the decade. The most important story of the year is not
whether Con. Gary Condit had an affair with a young intern, or whether
Jenna Bush tried to buy alcohol in a restaurant. The most important
story of the year is, was the will of the American people and the
Democratic ideals we value so highly, subverted to award the Presidency
to a man who did not legitimately win the election.
I know, I can just hear the groans from the conservatives, whose
attitude seems to be, "Regardless of how he won, our guy got in there
and you sore losers should just accept it". Or the Sunday afternoon
tabloid news show, sound-bite enthusiasts, whose attitude seems to
be, "Oh, that again. We heard about that for months. I want to hear
more about Gary Condit's affairs". But the truth is, this story is
just too important to forget about. The very foundation of our democratic
ideals are at stake.
During the indecision that followed the November election, passions
rose to a fever pitch on both sides. It was impossible at the time,
to wade through the rhetoric, to try to acertain the "truth". But,
like the old adage say's, "Hind sight is Twenty-Twenty".
It's common knowledge that Al Gore won the popular vote by over
a half million votes, but our country elects a President using the
Electoral Collage, so the deciding factor came down to the ultra tight
contest in the state of Florida. On election night the media networks
early on projected Gore the winner in that state, based on polling
place exit polls. I'm convinced that the polls showed Gore ahead,
because a majority of those people thought they had legitimately voted
for Gore. They didn't know at the time, that because of poorly designed
ballots or out dated voting machines, (which weighed disproportionately
on low income and minority voters who voted overwelmingly for Gore),
that their votes weren't going to be counted. Later on in the evening,
it became too close to call, and Al Gore and the Democratic Party
asked for "A Fair and Accurate recount".
The Republican Party, and the media, immediately projected the opinion
thet Bush had won and that Gore should just, "concede gracefully",
but quickly switched to branding him a "sore loser", despite the fact
that there was no evidence that Bush had actually won, and that there
were many, many troubling irregularities with the election in Florida,
where not so coincidentally, the Govenor was Bush's Brother and the
Secretary of State his State Campaign Manager. As we all know, eventually
the election was decided by a conservative majority on the Supreme
court, and George W. Bush was awarded the Presidency.
Now, many months later, after the passions have subsided and the
facts slowly come to light, it is abundantly clear, and becoming more
clear all the time, that Al Gore won the popular vote, that a fair
and accurate vote count in Florida would have shown him the winner
in that state, and therefore of the Electoral Collage and the Presidency,
and that the Bush campaign, the Republican National Party, the Supreme
Court and the U.S. Media combined to crown Bush president, in deference
to the will of the American people. This is most certainly the most
important story of the year.
If that's the truth, where are these "facts" you might say. On April
4, 2001, the Miami-Herald and USA Today released results from their
independant recount stating that George Bush had probably won Florida.
This story was picked up and trumpeted by the Media nation wide. The
Fresno Bee published an editorial based on the story. But in the 44th
paragraph of the article, The Miami-Herald admitted to having to use
"selective" figures to reach that conclusion. And then the next day,
on April the 4th, they recanted their story on the front page and
stated that Gore had probably won, "Gore almost certainly would have
won", the Herald reported, "He might have gained 2,022 votes in the
two counties", but few of the major Media, reported on that complete
turnaround.
Early on, the Gore campaign asked for a complete recount of the Florida
vote and pledged to abide by that count, no matter the results. But
the Bush campaign, from the beginning, did everything in their power
to stop that recount, fearing the results would go against their candidate.
The media showed James Baker on T.V. complaining about "counting the
votes over, and over and over". But in a two part series, (May 31st
and June 1, 2001), the conservative Washington Post reported that
18 of Florida's 67 counties "never recounted the ballots at all".
"To this day, more than 1.58 million votes (or about one-quarter of
Florida's total) have not been counted a second time." Some county
officials blamed the confusing recount procedures on Secretary of
State Katherine Harris, Bush's State Campaign Manager, for providing
no guidance on how to proceed.
The Post also reported that, "Gore likely lost about 6,500 votes",
in Palm Beach County because of the poorly designed "butterfly
ballot" that confused many elderly Jewish voters into thinking
they were voting for Gore when they were really voting for Pat Buchanan.
After the election, Buchanan acknowledged that his surprising total
of 3,704 votes in the staunchly Democratic county, with a large Jewish
population, almost certainly resulted from confusion. Buchanan said
he believed those votes were intended for Gore. Buchanan's total in
Palm Beach County exceeded his tally in any other county by almost
2,700.
And, it seems, Gore lost even more votes when people tried to correct
their error. On Nov 21, 2000, the New York Times reported that in
Palm Beach County, 19,120 ballots were disqualified because of double-voting.
Analysis of a sample of these disqualified ballots showed that, from
a sample of 144 ballots, 80 ballots - or 56 percent - showed punches
for both Buchanan and Gore. If that sample percentage were applied
to the entire batch, Gore potentially lost 10,622 votes. If one counts
2,700 of the Buchanan votes as likely confused voters for Gore, that
would put Gore's lost vote in Palm Beach County alone at more than
13,000. On May 11, 2001, USA Today estimated that Gore lost 15,000
to 25,000 votes, "enough to have decisively won Florida and the White
House."
At least a couple of thousand Florida voters were improperly purged
from the voter roles by being mistakenly identified as felons. The
overwhelming majority of these voters were African-American, who cast
ballots for Gore at a rate of 9 to 1. Even though the company assembling
the purge list expressed concern about the danger that the state's
approach would remove non-felons from the voting rolls, Florida Election
officials insisted they continue. "We warned them," James E. Lee,
spokesman for Database Technologies, told the Post. "The list was
exactly what the state wanted". A report by the Los Angeles Times
(May 21, 2001), agreed. "A review by the Times of thousands of pages
of records, reports and e-mail messages suggests the botched effort
to stop felons from voting could have affected the ultimate outcome".
And now the Post reports that the Bush Campaign padded its lead with
scores of absentee votes that were cast after Election Day or did
not meet legal standards. Those votes were counted in heavily Republican
counties -though not in Democratic strongholds - after the Bush campaign
rallied its supporters and the national news media to condemn The
Gore Campaign for initially demanding that legal requirements be followed.
The Post reported that "at least 17 ballots examined by the Post in
four north Florida counties were counted despite bearing postmarks
dated after Nov. 7. Scores more were counted after arriving without
postmarks in elections offices between Nov. 8 and Nov. 17, the deadline
for overseas absentee ballots to be received. The result was a rout
of the Democrats in the northern counties, where Bush picked up 176
votes that lacked postmarks and other required features".
At the same time the Bush Campaign demanded that strict state rules
be followed in primarily Democratic southern counties. The Post reported,
"In overwhelmingly Democratic Broward County, elections officials
rejected 304 overseas ballots for various technical reasons, including
119 because they lacked postmarks. Miami-Dade invalidated about 200;
Volusia threw out 43 and Orange 117. All three counties voted Democratic".
This wasn't the only instance of the Bush Campaign using a double
standard to achive their goals. A little known fact not covered by
many of the major media, is that at the same time they were condemning
Gore as a "sore loser", for asking for a recount in Florida, the Bush
Campaign asked for, and got, a complete recount in New Mexico, (which
confirmed Gore's victory there).
These are the facts, reported by conservative, major media. It's
clear that in all probability, Gore won the State of Florida by well
over 10,000 votes and thus should be our President today. But instead
of this most important story of the year being front page news, it's
only reported in little snippits, usually in the back of some section
where most people don't see it. The major media's seem to have closed
ranks to protect the legitimacy of the Bush Presidency. In a recent
editorial, columnist Jay Ambrose claimed that only 17% of Americans
were still concerned with the outcome of the election. Well Sir, I
reject that figure categorically. More then half of the American Electorate
voted against Bush, many thought that he would be more moderate then
he is and many have just been outright disenfranchised. I have to
think that the major media and the rightwing establishment have completly
underestimated the depth of resentment that the last election produced.
And now, after his first six months in office, despite the fact
that he didn't win the election, Bush is pushing his conservative
activist agenda forward as if he has an overwhelming mandate from
the people, which he most clearly does not. The man who campaigned
as a "Uniter, not a Divider", and a "Compassionate Conservative",who
pledged to stand behing the Kyoto accords, and pledged to recognize
the Armenian Genocide, has put into power a cabinet of corporate oilmen
and anti-environmentalists that scare even some of the Republicans
who voted for him, who assumed that he would be much more moderate
and not as anti-environmental. (The Wall Street Journalās ultra-conservative
editorial page openly praised Bush for building an administration
that is to the right of Ronald Reagan's). Suddenly there are proposals
open for discussion that most of us assumed had been put to bed decades
ago. More Nuclear Power, drilling for oil in the ANWR, in National
Monuments and off the coasts of California and Florida, The American
River Dam, Star Wars and "Tax Reform".
Bush's unilateral moves to scrap the Kyoto protocols and plunge ahead
with an unproven missille defense that abrogates the ABM treaty, are
isolating us from our closest world allies. Combined with some ill-advised
political brinkmanship with China, these moves steadily move us down
a road toward the bad old days of the cold-war. A new Arms-Race, along
with massive spending on an undeveloped missile defense system, and
some good old fashioned price gouging on all of our basic utilities,
combined with a huge 1.3 trillion tax cut for the wealthy, almost
assuredly will lead to deficit spending and recession, ( in fact the
recession started, literally, the day that the Republicans claimed
the White House). I shudder to think that 2 or 3 Supreme Court Justices
could retire, or die, while Bush is in office. That could build a
right wing court that would loom over our civil rights for decades.
I should enter a disclaimer here. I'm a lifelong Democrat, an unabashed
Liberal, a Union Member, and from a low income bracket, so I wouldn't
have been happy with a Bush Presidency under any circumstances.
And I'm not necessarily a Gore supporter. I thought he ran a terrible
campaign and hope he doesn't run again. However, I am also a Patriot,
proud of this country's ideals and accomplishments. If I thought that
George W. Bush had won the election fairly, and that a majority of
the American people voted for him, I would accept his Presidency.
I would grumble and complain, but I would still accept it. But I'm
convinced that that is not the case, and it troubles me deeply, almost
sickens me, that this was allowed to happen and that the media message
seems to be, "Get Over It". Well, I will not, "Get Over It". I'm an
American darn it, and that's just not the American way!
Roy "Point" Anderson
