American Politics Journal

Nor'easter
KMA, GOP!
by Alan Bisbort

September 7, 2001 - Hartford, CT (APJP) -- Now that the cumulative weight of the evidence from the journalists, researchers, legal scholars and authors has mounted, the verdict is in. It is unanimous and it is loud and it is clear: the Republican Party stole the presidential election of 2000.

The Republicans stole it six ways from Sunday -- the faith-based GOP's favorite day of the week -- and now they have history to answer to.

They stole the election before it occurred, by clearing the voting rolls of "felons," mistakenly disenfranchising thousands of legal voters in the process (see The Nation 4/30/01; Hartford Advocate, 12/21/00, 2/8/01).

NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: During the first week of December 2000, the Washington Post's Al Kamen named names and provided occupations of a few of the storm troopers featured in a Reuters photo.

1: Tom Pyle, policy analyst, office of Dixie Cro-Magnon House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX)

2: Garry Malphrus, majority chief counsel and staff director, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice.

3: Rory Cooper, political division staff member at the National Republican Congressional Committee

4: Kevin Smith, former House Republican conference analyst and more recently with Voter.com

5: Steven Brophy, former aide to Sen. Fred D. Thompson (R-TN.) and presently with consulting firm KPMG

6: Matt Schlapp, former chief of staff for Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS), at the time with the Bush campaign staff in Austin

7: Roger Morse, aide to Rep. Van Hilleary (R-TN)

8: Duane Gibson, aide to Chairman Don Young (R-AK) of the House Resources Committee

9: Chuck Royal, legislative assistant to Rep. Jim DeMint (R-SC)

10: Layna McConkey, former legislative assistant to former Rep. Jim Lightfoot (R-IA), currently with Steelman Health Strategies

They stole it during the election, sending storm troopers to Dade County to halt a recount they knew would not give them their desired results (see Jake Tapper's "Down and Dirty") and setting up a "war room" in Katherine Harris's office in Tallahassee, though the secretary of state was legally mandated to remain impartial (see New York Times 7/15/01, the recent report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights).

And they stole it after the election, by jimmying around with the absentee ballots, counting the ones they wanted and throwing out those they didn't (see New York Times 7/15/01), ultimately getting the Supreme Court to stop the count altogether (Harper's 5/01, recent books by Alan Dershowitz and Vincent Bugliosi).

It was, in short, a naked power grab, as unseemly as anything that occurs with regularity in Africa, Asia and Latin America, those areas we used to dismiss as Third World "banana republics." The crime is so vast and so well-documented that no amount of dissembling, rewriting and Sunday morning punditry can paper it over. It's on the record, an indelible blemish on the American soul.

Meanwhile, the rest of us who weren't born into privilege and have not had our places assured at the table in the corporate state of America, Inc. must muddle through the best we can for another three-plus years of what is, in effect, a bloodless coup.

The people -- the "Amurrkin peepil" that Bush and the Golem-like Ari Fleisher purport to speak for -- know this. They know it the way they know that the house will always win in Las Vegas. They know this the way they know that they are suckers for having ever believed the American Dream. They know this the way they know that all things being equal at the starting line they will still lose the race -- because someone has predetermined the results.

The muted reaction of Americans to the series of "findings" that have mounted since last November is not, as some have asserted, due to sheep-like complacency or brain dead patriotism. Nor is it a particular liking for Bush. Inc. -- polls regularly show W. is about as well liked as his smarmy poppy. My guess is that the nation is still in shock, like a family that has been rocked by a crisis -- the father, say, brutally gun-whips the mother in front of the children -- and they don't know how to react.

This much is self-evident but bears repeating: IT HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE IN AMERICAN HISTORY. That is, a President has never been selected by another branch of government, the popular vote winner has never been relegated to shameful exile, the corporations have never so blatantly taken over the nation (coming soon: a Smithsonian museum named after General Motors).

The campaign finance reform debacle was the Waterloo of Republicanism: a House so gallingly partisan as to kill a piece of carefully crafted legislation (the Shays-Meehan bill) that an overwhelming number of Americans wanted. Then the same party turns around and debates a meaningless "flag protection amendment."

Do they really think they can govern with symbols, handshakes, backslaps, moronic smiles, and no substance? If we let them continue pandering to us, they will. And, if they push too much harder, not just Congressmen like Jim Jeffords will jump ship: California could secede, then New England, then Texas re-recede into the primordial ooze from whence it came.

To some of us out here, this stolen election is as dark as the Kennedy and King assassinations. And the kick in the head is that the body politic has continued to be pummeled in the ribs even while it it lying prone on the ground. A selected president with no mandate keeps pushing a retrograde agenda that stands foursquare opposed to all that is right and fair and decent in American life, or life on this planet. No wonder the rest of the world hates our guts. The two other major powers' despots, Putin and Jiang, know the score about Bush, which is why they have been thrust in each other's arms, even while smiling in the face of the doofus from Texas.

So, to those who still gloat over this tainted "victory" and posture loudly about "moving on" and "getting over it," enjoy your brief moment in the sun, because it will be brief; it is, in fact, already dimming.

You know why?

History is written on facts, and endeavors to arrive at some sort of higher Truth, outside the slaughterhouse of partisan politics.

I say this knowing full well that there's not a damn thing I can do about it at the moment except to raise my voice, a right I still possess -- for the moment. I also say this because I want to go down with the people who write the history books. I want to be able to look at my son when he is of an age to ask the Big Questions and he turns to me and asks, "Dad, that thing that happened in 2000, when that empty hat from Texas stole the election: why didn't people speak up LOUD and CLEAR? Why did it take two Culture Wars, a mass migration of intellectuals and artists back to Europe, a second American Revolution and then a Second Civil War?"

I don't know, son, I will say. I don't know.

But at least I will have said something now. As for the majority of Americans who feel the way I do, but who have not said a word about this, I can only guess, and hope, that they are biding their time.

Now is the time to end your silence.

Alan Bisbort is a regular contributor to the Hartford Advocate.