Moral values – the Rove smokescreen

by Mike Whitney

The media have unanimously accepted the notion that “moral; values” was the driving force behind the 2004 Bush victory. I’m not buying it, and I’m surprised that so many of the writers I admire have accepted this shabby explanation without a bit of skepticism. The last time the media acted with such earnestness they were conspiring to pack the nation off to war. I expect a similar deception is taking place now.

The Left’s antipathy to Kerry, coupled with a deeply engrained suspicion of religious fanaticism, has convinced many, otherwise, reasonable people that the political paradigm shifted overnight. Did it, or is it just part of a cover up?

Did Karl Rove really emerge from his self-imposed hibernation, and make celebratory appearances on all the Sunday morning shows, just to bask in the limelight? Or was he there to prop up his feeble account of fundamentalists pouring out of the backwoods to support the “Dear Leader”?

And why are leftists so eager to believe that religious zealotry carried the day? This may tell us more about the deep seated fears of the Left then it does about the “alleged” legions of fanatical Christians?

Let’s look at the facts. We already have evidence that foul play took place in Franklin County, Ohio that amounted to nearly 4,000 votes. (diminishing Bush’s mighty mandate to a meager 130,000 votes) An article by Thom Hartmann (Nov 6) shows that there may have been massive vote tampering in Florida. Consider some of Hartmann’s statistics:

“In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180 for Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere else in the country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry.

(Okay; so with roughly 13,000 registered voters, 70% of them Democrats, only 2,000 votes for Kerry? Really? So, this is why the Left is convinced that “moral values” won the election?) Hartmann continues by citing example after example that makes the same basic point:

“In Dixie County, with 9,676 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats and a mere 15% registered as Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush.

The pattern repeats over and over again – but only in the counties where optical scanners were used. Franklin County, 77.3% registered Democrats, went 58.5% for Bush. Holmes County, 72.7% registered Democrats, went 77.25% for Bush.

Yet in the touch-screen counties, where investigators may have been more vigorously looking for such anomalies, high percentages of registered Democrats generally equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry.” (Thom Hartmann; Common Dreams)
There you have it. Even a cursory review of these stats suggests that massive fraud took place in Florida and perhaps Ohio as well. (Bev Harris, of “Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems.”)

If experts in the field are telling us that they have “hard evidence” of fraud, then we should be cautious before we reappoint George 2 to the throne. Perhaps, the American people are not quite as dull-witted as many seem to believe. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. And no one should be surprised if the corporate media is just faithfully executing it responsibilities to their boardroom bosses by trying to “cover up” the chicanery with a smoke screen.

The idea that the Bush Administration sat back and allowed the voting to go forward without inserting itself into the process is absurd. Where else have they shown a similar commitment to the democratic process; in Venezuela, where they authorized a coup against the democratically elected leader; in Haiti, where they armed a militia of drug runners and human rights abusers to topple Aristide who was elected by 93% of the popular vote; in Turkey, where they tried to bypass the authority of the Parliament (and 88% of the people) to get the Turkish military to provide access to US troop deployments to Iraq?

Where? Azerbaijan, the Republic of Georgia, Equatorial Guinea, Panama, Nicaragua etc? Without exception, the administration has disrupted the process wherever it has had the opportunity. And, let’s not forget election 2000, where the Bush strategy was to stop the hand counting of ballots because their client (Bush) would suffer “irreparable harm” if the counting continued. (The case was decided by invoking the 14th Amendment’s “equal protection” clause; a stretch of the law even for this despicable court.)

And, please explain why conservatives made sure that the “machinery of cheating” (electronic voting with proprietary source code funded by extreme right wing organisations) has been installed everywhere across the country if they had no intention of using it in an election?

People who watch these things closely know that the machines were already used successfully in the 2002 elections in key senatorial elections. (Max Cleland and Jean Carnahan; the exit polling was dramatically reversed when the votes were counted) Republicans had to win these two races to control the senate to advance the Bush agenda.

Explain why TV stations (including CNN; “the most trusted name in news”) have gone back to change their original exit polling data to match the final vote totals? Doesn’t that imply a cover up?

And, why is it that in every swing state that has “e-voting but no paper trails that the state totals have an unexplained advantage for Bush of around +5% when comparing exit polls to actual results of voting? In every state that has paper audit trails on their e-voting, the exit poll results match the actual results reported within the margin of error. So we have matching results for exit polls vs. voting with audits vs. A 5% unexplained advantage for Bush without audits.”

Why, why, why? “Moral values” just doesn’t answer these basic questions about the credibility of the election. If the election was legitimate and the votes were counted, then let’s have an independent investigation and put the matter to rest.

Who could have a problem with that?

Simple logic suggests that the Bush team was deeply involved in corrupting the election results. Cite one other example where the administration conducted itself with honesty and integrity? Abu Ghraib? Guantanamo? Iraq? This alone should be sufficient proof of the inherent venality of the administration; election fraud is just “small potatoes”.

Rove’s pathetic narrative of “activating the Christian base” (who reportedly abstained from voting in prior elections) is just a clever way of covering his tracks. No one stood in line for eight hours to extend the tenure of torturers and war criminals. (It’s astonishing that people on the Left accept this fable.)

The Bush Administration has no intention of leaving office now or ever. The trail of crimes they’ve left behind them makes it impossible for them to leave. (Imagine a Kerry investigation into 9-11, or the Cheney Energy papers, or the California energy price fixing, or Valerie Plame, or the Venezuela coup, or Iraqi WMD) America is stuck with these guys until we figure out a way to remove them from office by force.

The electoral process has been successfully subverted and the nation faces the greatest constitutional crisis of its 200 year history. Forget about the “moral values” rubbish. It’s just another form of denial.