Editorials we agree withHey, every once in a blue moon the corporate media attack chihuahuas churning out the nation's editorial pages get something right. And when they do, Al-Gore-2004.org is there!
From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Do-nothing administration got what it wanted Published June 9, 2001
In case you missed it, the recent presidential election in Florida was stolen. There are many who believe otherwise, and for those apologists and the truly misinformed, I have three words: "Get over it!"
It shouldn't take a rocket scientist or a critical report by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission to confirm that the disenfranchisement of Florida's voters last November fell more harshly on black voters.
While blacks comprised about 11 percent of all voters in the state, they cast about 54 percent of the ballots that were rejected last November. Using countywide estimates, the commission found black voters were nearly 10 times more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected in Florida.
Nine of 10 counties with the highest percentage of black votes have spoilage rates above the Florida average. Of the 10 counties with the highest percentage of white voters, only two counties had spoilage rates above the state averages.
Let's not forget the state's overzealous removal of a disproportionate number of black voters from Florida's voter registration rolls. Under the guise of purging felons, thousands of innocent voters were stripped of their right on the eve of the big election.
Lastly, the commission doesn't need a conspiracy or intent to determine a violation of federal law. It's the result of the state's action, or in this case inaction, against black voters that causes problems with the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.
These are the important aspects of the report that critics of the civil rights commission failed to address this week when a draft summary was leaked to the press. Instead, they ceded the high ground and opted to respond with rather rabid allegations that political bias fueled the commission's report.
"When you have the facts, you argue the facts," Mary Frances Berry, the commission chairwoman said in reply to the barrage of criticism. "When you don't have the facts, you pound the table."
The poor table took a real pummeling.
"The premature release of the report is entirely consistent with the substantive bias and procedural unfairness that have been the commission's trademark throughout its investigation of the November 2000 election," Charles Canady, an attorney for Gov. Jeb Bush, wrote in a letter to the commission.
"The substance of the report is highly suspect because the process was so flawed and unfair. My sense is that it is a political hatchet job," parroted Al Cardenas, chairman of the Florida Republican Party.
Secretary of State Katherine Harris couldn't resist aping her colleagues in over-the-top rhetoric. In a news release, she said Berry's refusal to take responsibility for leaking a draft report critical of Harris and the governor was proof that she is trying to use the commission "to score political points, rather than to seek genuine solutions."
What did we expect? An admission that Florida had some systemic problems that actually contributed to last November's debacle? An acknowledgement that the state should have done something to address these problems before the election?
Prior to November, elections were primarily the concern of local elections supervisors. They didn't get much help from the state, even less money. Last year, for example, the state allocated zilch in appropriations to counties for voter education programs.
Last summer, the Republican leadership in Tallahassee spent time twisting arms and raising money for their party's presidential nominee. They certainly weren't concerned about black voters. That was a problem for the county elections supervisor, and besides most black voters in Florida weren't likely to support any governor named Bush -- Jeb or Dubya.
The commission, as the report correctly stated, didn't find conclusive evidence that Bush, Harris or any other member of the Bush administration conspired to produce disenfranchisement. However, anyone who's lived in Florida and has kept his or her head out of the sand knows state leaders didn't need to hold a meeting to produce the desired results.
They did nothing. That's what the report said.
Seven months after the election state lawmakers can point to some badly needed reforms, an accomplishment the commission praised in its much-criticized report. The changes will bring better voting machines, and there's even state money -- almost $6 million -- for voter education programs.
The state's new role, however, demands greater accountability. If state lawmakers truly want to move on, they should read the final version of the report and glean from it some constructive criticism so that Florida won't become a repeat offender in 2002.
From The Capital TimesJohn Nichols: McVeigh gets 2nd chance, Gore doesn't By John Nichols
May 15, 2001Who would have thought that convicted Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh would have a better chance of getting his case reopened than recount-denied presidential candidate Al Gore? Consider two big news headlines from last week: "FBI failed to deliver 3,000 pages of documentation to McVeigh lawyers." "Florida election errors cost Gore the election." Guess which headline created a stir that led to talk of reopening the case at hand? Here's a hint: It wasn't the one involving the question of whether the choice of the American people for president was reflected in the results of the Nov. 7, 2000, election. That's right: The revelation that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had conveniently failed to share information with McVeigh's lawyers resulted in a one-month delay of the execution of the man convicted of killing 168 people in the Oklahoma City federal building. What's a little disturbing is that, while the revelation regarding McVeigh may eventually lead to a new trial for the convicted bomber, the revelation regarding monumental screw-ups in Florida's presidential voting last fall will result in no shift in circumstances for Gore, or the voters whose choices were thwarted by Bush family retainers in Florida and on the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court. Had Florida election officials adhered to a long-standing state rule requiring them to review discarded ballots with an eye to ascertaining the intent of voters, it is now quite clear that Gore would have won that state -- and with it the Electoral College votes required to make the winner of the popular vote president. As USA Today, which has just completed a review of Florida ballots in conjunction with the Miami Herald, noted on Page 1 of its Friday editions: "Who does it appear most (Florida) voters intended to vote for? Answer: Gore." The newspaper's front page featured an illustration that summed up the denial of democracy. It was the photo of a ballot on which a voter mistakenly placed a mark next to the name of George W. Bush. The voter crossed the mark out and then, to ensure that there was no confusion, clearly wrote "No" next to the mark and Bush's name. Finally, the voter carefully, and unequivocally, filled in the space next to Gore's name -- indicating a vote for the Democrat. This ballot, USA Today explained, was disqualified. Though the intent of the voter to register a vote for Gore was clear, it was not counted as such. A hand recount of discarded ballots -- conducted by nonpartisan experts -- found that 1,871 could be counted without any real doubt as votes for Gore, while 1,189 registered votes for Bush. What that means is that an honest recount of discarded ballots clearly marked for Gore or Bush would have given Gore an additional 682 votes -- more than enough to reverse the "official" Bush margin in Florida of 537. These are just the ballots that can be established without any serious debate as votes for Gore. Add in the tens of thousands of additional ballots that featured mistaken votes for Gore and a second candidate -- resulting from poor ballot design and instructions -- and the true sentiments of the electorate become clear. But we'll leave the explaining to Anthony Salvanto, a University of California-Irvine political science professor who specializes in computer analysis of voting patterns. "You get a pretty clear pattern from these ballots," Salvanto says of the so-called "overvotes." "Most of these people went to the polls to vote for Gore." Too bad those votes weren't hidden in FBI files. If that had been the case, Gore might have won a new trial in front of the Supreme Court.
From The New York Times:
April 7, 2001Our Soldiers May Pay for the Tax CutBy JOE LIEBERMAN WASHINGTON -- What's the quickest way to turn a hawk into a dove? The answer seems to be: Cut its taxes. For the better part of the past decade, Republican hawks have been arguing for a major build-up in military spending, often attacking the Clinton administration for underfunding our armed forces. But now, hardly a sound is heard from these hawks about President Bush's plans, as reflected in the Republicans' budget resolution, to hold almost all of the defense budget next year and for the rest of the decade at the same levels President Clinton had planned. What happened to the purported readiness crisis that Mr. Bush decried during the campaign last fall? What has changed? Nothing, and that's the problem. The tax plan that Mr. Bush first proposed 15 months ago in the New Hampshire presidential primary remains the same, despite the fact that it is now impossible for him to keep his promises to the military. The Concord Coalition, a bipartisan anti-deficit group, says the president's tax plan could cost $2.3 trillion over 10 years. The Senate voted yesterday for a somewhat smaller tax cut, but the president remains wedded to his original proposal. That means the budget doesn't add up today or leave enough money for our military needs tomorrow. In the administration's new budgetary calculation, it seems joint filers trump the Joint Chiefs. Although our military remains the strongest fighting force in the world, it does have some serious immediate and long-term needs. And if we don't act now to ensure we can meet those needs, we will put our security at risk. That is not just my assessment, but the opinion of every leader at the Pentagon and independent defense expert I have talked to, not to mention Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee. We need to spend more now on spare parts, ammunition and training; our military personnel also need immediate increases to improve substandard housing and health care. If we don't meet these urgent needs, the Pentagon will be forced to play a shell game, moving money from other critical programs to avoid cutting back on training, parts and pay. Instead, President Bush should quickly send Congress a request for a supplemental appropriation for our military. For the long term, we are told to wait for the completion of a strategic review, conducted by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, before any more money is committed to defense. That, too, is wrong. We may not yet know exactly what programs we will want to finance, or exactly how much additional money we will need, but we do know that transforming our military will not be less expensive than keeping our current military. On Wednesday, Mary Landrieu and several other Democratic senators proposed reducing President Bush's tax cut to allow us to increase defense spending. We wanted to add a total of $100 billion - a sensible sum for defense over the next decade. Regrettably, the amendment lost 52-47, with 49 Republicans and three Democrats voting against it. Voting for it were 46 Democrats and John McCain. If the Bush tax cut or anything similar passes, there will simply not be enough money in the next decade for the spending that will be necessary to provide for our common defense. If that happens, America and all of us who are its citizens will suffer.
From The New York Times:
March 31, 2001ABROAD AT HOMEThe Feeling of a Coup By ANTHONY LEWIS BOSTON -- We are learning something these days about the power of a willful president. Without a popular mandate, George W. Bush is making radical changes that will have long-term consequences for this country and the world. He is making them in a hurry, and for the moment there are no checks or balances to stop him. Day after day headlines tell us of fundamental policy reversals. Mr. Bush spurns the global effort, going back to the first Bush presidency, to reduce global warming. He calls off talks with North Korea about its missiles, casting doubt on the whole attempt to ease relations between South and North. He proposes to rethink U.S. aid programs that help dismantle former Soviet nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. A string of Bush administration decisions has halted steps to protect the environment. Arsenic in drinking water, roads in national forests and so on: limits are going to be "restudied." The reasons given for the environmental decisions have been almost insultingly unconvincing. Christie Whitman, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said she was withdrawing the arsenic limit set in a Clinton administration regulation because it had not had "thorough review" in terms of "sound science." In fact, the limit was proposed by highly regarded scientists after extended study. Mr. Bush, explaining to senators why he opposed the Kyoto protocol on global warming, spoke of the "incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change." Of course the science is incomplete on global warming, as it is on most subjects. But virtually all scientific experts support the theory that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to warming. Contempt for public opinion as well as for science is evident in the environmental decisions. A striking example is what has happened to a Clinton regulation that prohibited road-building in about a third of the national forests. The head of the Forest Service, Michael P. Dombeck, resigned the other day and sent a letter to his boss, Ann M. Veneman, the secretary of agriculture. He respectfully urged her not to abandon the ban on roads. "Doing so," he wrote, "would undermine the most extensive multi- year environmental analysis in history, a process that included over 600 public meetings and generated 1.6 million comments, the overwhelming majority of which supported protecting roadless areas." Mr. Dombeck's plea is not likely to move the Bush administration. It postponed the effective date of the road-building regulation for 60 days for further review. And in the meantime its lawyers have not defended the regulation in a lawsuit brought against it by the Boise Cascade timber company and the state of Idaho. The American public would almost certainly vote to protect roadless parts of the national forests, as it would to reduce the amount of arsenic in water. But the public is not the audience that concerns Mr. Bush and his appointees. They are out to please the interests that supported and financed his campaign: timber companies, mining companies and the rest. Nor is Mr. Bush moved by the arguments of respected Republican elders. As he ordered a review of the program for dismantling Soviet weapons, former Senator Howard Baker - whom he has named ambassador to Japan - was telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the program should be funded in full. The Bush motto, a Washington quip has it, is "Do it my way or no way." That catches the willful quality of these first months. But there is more to the story than that. This is the most radical administration in living American memory. I use the word deliberately. Today's right calls itself "conservative," but it is not that. Conservatives want to conserve. That is why Teddy Roosevelt started the national parks and the conservation movement. George W. Bush and his people are driven by right-wing ideology to an extent not remotely touched by even the Reagan administration. And we haven't seen the half of it. As Mr. Dombeck said of opening the national forests to road-building, the decisions "will have implications that will last many generations." All this from a man who ran as a "compassionate conservative," concealing his hard-edged ideology, and who could not get half the voters to vote for him even in that guise.
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