"Having said all of that, I would like to see us have a bit more hands-on engagement in trying to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. That’s where we made significant progress before, when we got Syria to change 25 years of policy and recognize Israel by sitting down across the table and negotiating peace. We’re at the point now where we don’t talk to Syria. We don’t talk to Iran. We don’t talk to Hezbollah and Hamas because they’re terrorist organizations. When we did our work with Syria, they were on our list of state sponsors of terror. My point is, you don’t talk to your friends; you talk to your enemies.and this:
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You know, talking to people is not appeasement if you know what you’re doing and you’re a good, hard-nosed negotiator. There ought to be nothing wrong with diplomacy."
Q: Well, let’s talk about what happened in 2000, since that’s a little more public. I loved the Florida chapter in your book, because it was the first time I could remember getting your point of view on what happened there. I was interested in one quote in particular: “George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had more votes. They had more votes on Election Day, more votes when the dispute ended thirty-six days later, and more votes every day in between.” You know, of course, that there are people out there who believe that that’s not true. You are absolutely certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that there were more votes in Florida for Bush-Cheney than Gore-Lieberman?Isn't that just factually wrong about the media?
Baker: Without a shadow of a doubt, and it’s confirmed by all of the post-Florida media surveys. All of the subsequent recounts done by the media proved it. And these were not partisan organizations; in fact, if they were partisan, they were partisan the other way. They counted all of those hanging chads and used various formulas, and under all of them, Bush-Cheney won. I’m sure there are some who see it the other way, but the point is, we were not contesting the election. We were preserving the results that had been announced by the election authorities in Florida.
Q: So there can be no doubt.
Baker: There can be no doubt. People have come to me saying, “What’s wrong with your country? You can’t even run an election.” And I say, “Look, if this were happening in your country, you’d probably have tanks in the streets.” The message of Florida, the lesson of Florida, is that our system works. The rule of law prevails.
This from dreyfuss' recent article about the Iraq Study Group (quoting really senior people in the ISG):
"Several of those involved in the task force point out that Baker is perfect for the job. "First of all, he's close to Bush 41," one of them told me. "Second, Bush 43 owes his presidency to Jim Baker because of the skullduggery in Florida in 2000."
6 comments:
Of course, those quotes are factually wrong about the media. The best analysis and reportage I have come across on this issue is found in this article by Robert Parry: Gore's Victory written shortly after the news media consortium reviewed Florida's ballots and came out in print with their findings:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/111201a.html
Oddly, as related by Parry, the NYT's headline was at odds with their actual findings somewhat buried in the story. This has helped add to the confusion (probably purposefully, IMHO) as to what the actual findings were.
ewastud - right - that's what i thought. and THIS is the adult they choose to bring some 'realism' to the iraq situation! outrageous. i didnt think he'd dare make such an absurd and categorically, demonstrably, false statement - and thought i must have been going a bit kooky. silly me.
This is ridiculous. Both elections were stolen. Greg Palast did a series of articles on the rigged voter lists in Florida. We had 5 uni professors of statistics come out and say they had analysed the discrepancies between the exit polls and the actual results. The odds were something like a million to one against the actual results obtained. It was rigged! The 2004 elections were similar. I don't have all the references, but there was John Conyers Preserving Democracy and here's just one statistical study of 2004. Obviously there's merit in putting together a whole series of links on this. But, basically, they were stolen. And we know the Repug method - lie early, lie often and keep on lying.
D - i accept that they were both stolen - but Baker's claim that "All of the subsequent recounts done by the media proved it." is simply a categorical, provable lie, right? i mean, he doesnt even give himself any wiggle room.
he should be smarter than that.
You're damned right, he should be smarter than that. Do we detect a bit of that hubris again?
I have followed the election rigging very closely since I first saw Baker standing in front of the TV cameras in Florida going on and on in exasperation over the fact that people were actually expecting the Florida ballots to be counted.
When the former supremes handed down their outrageous appointment of Raisinbrain on December 12, 2000, I shifted into full-bore fury. The other day, when Uranus wrote in a post somewhere around here that the fear goes away, replaced by anger and determination, when one realizes that 2000 saw democracy in the United States destroyed by a coup d'etat. That is EXACTLY what happens, and it explained why all their terror alerts fail to have the slightest effect on me. They may be all about all-fear-all-the-time, but that scheme utterly fails to interest me. The bu$histas are the threat to this country, not a bunch of violent criminals. This world has ALWAYS had a violent criminal element and long ago learned how to deal with that. It is called 'police work.'
Up until the election of 2000, I had always been a 'responsible citizen' in that I kept up with current events and tried to vote intelligently. I was surprised at how personally I took this blatant, in-broad-daylight theft of the U.S. government. Any faith I ever had that elections were run fairly, for the most part, and that electoral fraud was mostly a thing of the past was destroyed.
They not only stole the presidential election in 2000, they moved on to stealing several key Congressional (and who knows how many state and local) seats in 2002, perfecting their methods as they went in the run up to 2004, with more tweaking during the occasional special elections here and there along the way (most recently in the Busby/Bilbray race in CA-50).
Their methods range from insane voter suppression schemes* and accommodating partisan Secretaries of State in the mold of Katherine Harris, to the more traditional ballot stuffing and shifting techniques, updated to make use of the computerized voting machines and tabulators - all controlled by Republican donors.
* In an earlier incarnation of Choice Point, and under the direction of Jebbie bu$h, Katherine Harris claimed she was purging the voter rolls of dead people and felons, but instead deliberately had Choice Point set the computer search parameters so broadly as to scoop up about 90,000 qualified voters and relieve them of their right to vote in 2000. Despite being under a Federal Election Commission (I think) order to restore these persons voting rights before the 2004 election, Jeb has STILL failed to comply. Their crime? Apparently just voting while Black (and therefore, presumably Democratic).
Then came Ohio. And electronic ballot stuffing in other states. And other strongly Republican districts - to try to make it appear that THIS time, regardless of what finally surfaced in Ohio, it would appear that bu$hCheney 'won' a popular majority. The statistical studies referenced by Damien above, and the one by Paul Lehto and his co-author focusing on Snohomish County in Washington State, support these conclusions.
Lehto was successful in forcing Snohomish County to dump the touch screen machines and now it has joined 33 (or more?) of the other 39 Washington State counties in going 100% vote by mail. King County, where I live, is on track to be 100% mail, leaving maybe three or four counties in the unknown-target-date column for now. Since Oregon went to 100% vote-by-mail elections several years ago, they have had NO problems with election fraud.
We're not home free yet, however, because we still have Diebold doing the tabulating and new touch screen machines in King County for the interim, PLUS, regardless of how careful individual states are about election integrity, all it takes is a Florida, Ohio, or others, to be targeted by these jerks for rigging to essentially neuter the will of the majority, no matter the State of residency.
The average 8-year-old knows if you cheat during the game, you forfeit the prize. I guess that is only true in school and in ordinary life. If you're stealing an entire country, then the deadline for swearing in the selected 'winner' ends the game with no recourse for the aggrieved parties.
Bastards! Hell is too good for them.
LeeB - ranteriffic! FP'd
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