THE
BOSNIAN MODEL
Cunningham
went on to say that it is "critically important" that the
"international community be prepared to act forcefully to
ensure that those who are opposed to Dayton are not in a position
to block the peace accords." Such are the prerogatives of
the occupiers. In the Croatian region of Bosnia, the "legal"
grounds for overturning the election results are what one
news report referred to as "illegal campaign activities" –
specifically, illegal
campaign posters that
contained "hate speech." The offending slogan was "Self-Determination
or Extermination," obviously a hate crime in the "multi-cultural"
tyranny of the New Europe. The "electoral commission" of the
OSCE recently announced that 13 members of the nationalist
Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) will not be allowed to take
their seats in the Bosnian parliaments. The reason? "Electoral
irregularities" alleged by the OSCE commission. Perhaps the
Gore campaign will invite in a few OSCE observers to Florida,
to give them a few pointers, that is if they haven't already.
SAME
STRATEGY, DIFFERENT TACTICS
Of
course, in Bosnia, any published or broadcast commentary that
casts doubt on the divine wisdom of the Dayton agreement is
classified as "hate speech," and therefore illegal. Cunningham
went on to say that such evidence of ideological criminality
"only reinforces our belief that the SDS continues to be controlled
by those who are committed to see Dayton fail." While in Bosnia,
the edicts of Cunningham and his masters in Washington can
be carried out at gunpoint, in Florida, however, the Clintonian
Democrats must – for now – resort to other methods,
albeit no less obvious or effective.
TWISTED
BALLOTS
Meanwhile,
back in Palm Beach, Florida, Carol
Roberts, the highly
partisan Democrat who sits on the now
all-powerful Board of Canvassers, led what amounted to
a campaign rally as she defiantly announced to a cheering
crowd that she would go ahead with the third counting of the
votes. Ignoring advice from the board's own lawyers, and state
election officials, the woman who has been in the vanguard
of the Democratic coup attempt defiantly
declared: "(By going ahead) what happens? Do we go to
jail? Because I'm willing to go to jail." In a better world,
this hatchet-faced hatchet-woman would indeed wind up behind
bars – for election fraud. The Washington
Times reveals that, on inspecting a ballot that would
otherwise have gone to Gore, observer John Grotta heard the
old battle-ax exclaim: "Unfortunately, the corners aren't
detached"! But there are ways around that, and according to
the signed affidavits of five observers to Saturday's hand
count, Roberts "twisted the ballots and poked her finger directly
in sections of, and aggressively handled, the ballots."
CAROL
ROBERTS AND THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE
This
is the woman to whom we have entrusted the fate of the nation
– a ward-healing partisan Democrat with her hands around
the throat of our expiring republic, squeezing for all she's
worth. Roberts is the perfect symbol of our totalitarian New
Democrats – the snappish self-righteousness, the utter
disregard for the rule of law, the imperious arrogance, are
all, in her, combined to produce a public figure even more
unsympathetic and overbearing than Al Gore. As propaganda
for the Republicans, the on-the-spot coverage of La Roberts'
was priceless. Bullying the poor chairman of the Palm Beach
election board, Judge Charles Burton, who tried to at least
put a veneer – however thin – of legality on outright
thievery, Roberts' strident hectoring captured the essence
of what is going on in the People's Republic of Palm Beach.
It was a blow struck for the Republicans every time the TV
cameras showed those Palm Beach county election officials
holding ballots up to the light and peering intently at its
indentations, their faces screwed up in solemn concentration.
Were they channeling the spirits of the voters, and somehow
verifying their votes for Gore? Certainly it seemed that way,
which is why, perhaps, these images were replaced so quickly
by the talking spinning heads of Democratic party lawyers
and their sadly inept Republican counterparts.
PALM
BEACH PERFIDY
Election
observer Mark Klimer, a Republican, charges in a sworn affidavit
that he personally witnessed Roberts pick up ballots from
a stack of disputed ballots and deliberately mix them in with
Gore votes. This same observer testifies that a Palm Beach
county election worker refused to recount a stack of ballots
that contained Bush votes. Klimer, a West Palm Beach banker,
was in the counting room for over four hours on Saturday:
perhaps the most serious charge he makes is that there were
no objective standards used to evaluate ballots. The standard
for what constituted a Gore vote shifted no less than three
times, depending on how the count was going. "Beyond a shadow
of a doubt, what I saw is the absolute truth," he said, and
his charges are echoed by the other four observers who signed
similar statements. Let us hope the Republicans put these
affidavits to good use, not only in the courtroom but in the
court of public opinion.
DEMOCRATS
MOBILIZE
I
wouldn't count on it, however. So far, the Republicans seem
to be losing on both fronts, the legal and the
political. It is truly amazing how far the Democrats, who
are trying to overturn an election, have gone in convincing
themselves if not the American people that they are the true
fighters for "democracy." "Every vote must count!" is their
battle-cry, to which the more cynical among us might add:
"even the ones that aren't there." It was the Democrats who
mobilized the lawyers first, and sent a flying squad of them
into the state to cook up "citizens lawsuits" contesting the
election results. Yet the Republicans were quickly sucked
into this legal quagmire, and somehow wound up looking like
obstructionists of the "people's will" for seeking redress
in the courts. This was due, in part, to the biased media
coverage, but there was nothing to prevent the Bush campaign
from taking its case directly to the American people. What
were all those expensive TV ads for, anyway, if Republicans
are going to allow the Democrats to take the offensive –
and steal the election? Out of the $50 million or so in soft,
hard, and semi-erect campaign contributions raised by Team
Bush, surely a small percentage of that could be used to present
the case against the coup.
NO
MORE MR. NICE GUY
Why
don't they just admit what everyone acknowledges by now, and
that is that the campaign, far from being over, has gone into
its second phase? The Democrats, if they didn't plan on this,
were quick to adapt their strategy and tactics and appeal
to their base for support via a sympathetic media. The Republicans,
if they want to defeat this beer hall putsch, must
go over the heads of the media and make their appeal directly
to the American people, without any filters or "spinning"
double-talkers to distort or dilute their message. It's time
to come on strong and go negative: how can the Republicans
and their media mannequins – the Tucker
Carlsons and Mary
Matalins – fail to denounce the grasping grandiose
Al Gore as a dangerous would-be American Napoleon whose triumph
would be our Thermidor?
What is holding them back? I didn't vote for George W. Bush,
and I don't support his politics or his policies. His foreign
policy views are particularly dangerous, and I have no doubt
that, once in office, a powerful faction among his foreign
policy advisors would soon have us embroiled in a major military
conflict in the Middle East. But much more is at stake here,
and that is the continuity of our republican (small-'r') tradition.
Looking back on this moment, the future historians of American
decline will see this as Al Gore's crossing of the Rubicon
– the end of the American Republic and the beginning
of the imperial era, the Age of the Caesars. I shudder to
think that, when the stakes are so high, our only defenders
are moderate Republicans of a distinctly aristocratic mien,
reluctant to fight and halfhearted when they do.
WORTH
A THOUSAND WORDS
The
Republicans, if they are looking for an opening, should take
advantage of the glass window that gives us a full view of
the goings-on presided over by Carol Roberts and her crew.
Al the GOP have to do is set up a camera and point it in the
right direction, so that Americans and people the world over
can see "democracy" at work. Let the camera pan over the floor,
as
loosened chad falls like snow, while Carol shakes those
ballots for all they're worth. We don't need a soundtrack.
In this case, a picture is worth a thousand words.
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