Democracy in America

Bernestine Singley reports on voter intimidation in Florida.

I haven't posted a whole lot about this, and yeah, I agree with Atrios (not that Duncan Black even knows who the hell I am, but...)--however, it speaks volumes as to the tactics of the GOP when they openly espouse denial of the franchise, which they did throughout the final weeks of the election. Now, the Rethuglicans will counter that they're actually trying stop fraud, not suppress voting--demonstrating that nuance, heretofore a term scornfully applied to Democrats only, is an integral part of their lexicon as well...sort of like how they rail about "trial lawyers," but not GOP lawyers...

Anyway, between this and the numerous reports I'm sure all of y'all have seen regarding Ohio--not to mention the odd fact that, for the first time EVER, exit polls weren't accurate--well, I'll just say that something smells a bit. Was it enough to change the election results? I have no idea. But something just doesn't seem right.

Is election fraud the exclusive domain of the GOP party? Of course not. Anyone with a sense of history knows that Democrats can and do stuff ballot boxes.

---side note: in addition to congratulating Oyster for lasting six months, he's also got some wonderful stuff about landslide Lyndon Johnson and the 13th precinct--check his archives. To follow along the same line, I remember reading about Joe Kennedy talking about the razor thin margin in Illinois that put his son in the White House. Kennedy supposedly said, "I paid for a win, not a landslide."--

However, the use of intimidation tactics--whether or not it significantly affected the final outcome--is treading on dangerous ground. To me, it smacks of nothing more than Jim Crow, the KKK, the White Citizen's Councils, and the other homegrown American terror organizations. And the GOP party should be called upon to repudiate it. Publicly.

After they do that, perhaps the GOP party can also explain why it was more important for Bush and Cheney to attend fundraisers and go campaigning than to stay in Washington attending to the business of America, which happens to include two wars and a faltering economy. And perhaps they can also explain why it's ok to lie about Weapons of Mass Destruction, being greeted as liberators, making bin Laden the highest priority, and making Ahmad Chalabi their primary source of information about pre-war Iraq.