Who Are the Activists Now?
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: Linkin Park - Breaking the Habit
Topic: Politics
Who Are the Activists Now?
By Michael Kinsley
The Los Angeles Times

Sunday 14 November 2004

Judges that rule for Bush escape that nasty label.

What does President Bush mean, if anything, when he says that his kind of judge "knows the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law"? Every judge sincerely believes that he or she is interpreting the law properly.

Read More...

But has anybody read the 2004 Republican platform on abortion? It doesn't merely call for reversal of Roe vs. Wade. It calls for "legislation to make it clear that the 14th Amendment's protections apply to unborn children," and for judges who believe likewise. How's that for activism? If fetuses are "persons" under the 14th amendment, which guarantees all persons "equal protection of the law," abortion would be illegal whether a state or the Congress wanted to keep it legal it or not. More than that: There could be no legal distinction between the rights of fetuses and the rights of human beings after birth. So, just for example, a woman who procured an abortion would have to be prosecuted as if she had hired a gunman to murder her child. The doctor would have to be treated like the gunman. And that includes capital punishment in states that have it. And the party that now controls all three branches of government says this is already the case. Only legislation is needed to "make it clear," and judges are needed who will enforce it.

But no "activism," please. The Republican Party can't stand that.

FOCUS: Roe vs. Wade at Crossroads
Mood:  down
Topic: Politics
Roe v. Wade at Crossroads
Newsday

Saturday 13 November 2004

Abortion foes are just one Supreme Court justice away from victory.

Anyone who thinks abortion rights aren't in serious jeopardy should consider the plight of Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Specter has been a Republican for 40 years. He's in line to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in January. He has voted to confirm every single one of President George W. Bush's judicial nominees. Despite that record, angry conservatives are determined to block his rise to chairman. Why?

Because Specter supports abortion rights. And because he had the temerity to state the obvious: That Bush would have trouble winning Senate confirmation of any Supreme Court nominee who is notoriously anti-abortion rights. That's a simple mathematical fact.

It takes only 51 of 100 Senate votes to confirm a judicial nominee. But it takes 60 votes to cut off debate and move to a confirmation vote. Come January, there will be 55 Republicans in the Senate. Do the math. That's not enough to derail a determined Democratic filibuster. Specter said he was alluding to that numerical reality when he made the remark that has haunted him all week.

But conservative foes of abortion rights have been emboldened by the perception that they provided Bush's margin of victory Nov. 2. They aren't of a mind to tolerate even the barest hint of resistance to their agenda, which is reversal of Roe v. Wade. That would be a tragedy. It would strip women of the right to control their bodies and turn the clock back to the grisly days of back-alley abortions.

Bush has a choice to make. Option 1: He could opt for polarizing political warfare by nominating anti-abortion absolutists for the top court. He could push for a change in Senate filibuster rules to deprive Democrats of that time-honored tactic and rely on raw political power to beat back all opposition. Option 2: Do what he promised during the campaign - impose no abortion litmus test for judicial candidates, while nominating people who will strictly interpret the Constitution rather than legislating from the bench. That's the better course.

Partisan warfare over the abortion positions of Supreme Court nominees would inflame the country's political division and undermine public confidence in the independence of the judicial system.

Bush has the right to nominate people who share his political views. But he should engage Democrats in the process in search of nominees acceptable to both sides. Democrats have blocked 10 of his lower court picks, employing the filibuster as their weapon of choice. But Bush is in the driver's seat. The Senate confirmed more than 200 of his judicial nominees, many of whom share his anti-abortion convictions.

Anti-abortion forces won't like a less confrontational approach because they're just one justice away from achieving their objective. Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to abortion, commanded a 7 to 2 majority in 1973. More recent abortion decisions have seen that majority slip to 5 to 4. There are no immediate Supreme Court vacancies. There haven't been any for a decade. But the court is aging and Chief Justice William Rehnquist was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer. There will probably be one or more spots to fill in the next four years.

Replacing Rehnquist, a solid vote against abortion rights, isn't likely to alter the court balance. But that balance could tip decisively should any one of the abortion-rights supporters leave the bench. That includes Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, as well as swing voters David Souter, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, whose positions on abortion are less black and white.

The nation may be approaching a legal sea change that could end or sharply curtail a woman's right to abortion. But change that profound should be approached through reasoned debate, not a political beat-down.

FOCUS: Fallujah - Breaking a City in Order to Fix It
Quasi-Original Article

Breaking a City in Order to Fix It
By Edward Wong
The New York Times

Sunday 14 November 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Neutralizing the threat from the green-domed mosque looked almost effortless. Marines in the dusty warrens of Fallujah had been taking fire from one of its twin minarets. They called in air support. A 500-pound bomb slammed into a blue-tiled tower, obliterating a signature part of the Khulafa Al Rashid mosque, the city's most celebrated religious building.

As in a fevered dream, that and other scenes of destruction played out last week in Fallujah before the eyes of American troops, residents and reporters. By early Saturday, marines and soldiers had swept through most of the city and cornered insurgents in the south, leaving behind shelled buildings, bullet-riddled cars and rotting corpses.

It proved one thing: That the Americans are great at taking things apart. What comes after the battlefield victory has always been the real problem for them during their 19 months in Iraq.

The commanders say their goals now in Fallujah are to install a viable Iraqi government and security force, rebuild the city to win back the confidence of the residents and persuade the Sunni Arabs, who were Saddam Hussein's base of support and were ousted from power with him, to lay down their arms and take part in a legitimate political process.

Difficult as all of that seems, it is the last aim - persuading the Sunnis to act as a loyal minority in a democracy - that may be the most improbable goal of the retaking of Fallujah by storm.

American officials say that if it can be done, Fallujah, which has assumed mythic status across the Arab world for its resistance, could then serve as a model for the rest of Iraq, and Iraq as a model for the rest of the Middle East.

But given the track record of the Americans and their allies, military analysts say, the immediate goals in Fallujah seem naive, if not utterly inconsequential given the surging resistance across the Sunni-dominated regions of Iraq, almost certainly organized by the very leaders who fled Fallujah before the offensive.

"Iraq is a complex problem," said Charles Pena, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian research group based in Washington. "Our problem is that we keep leading people to believe that there are simple solutions."

"Our military action creates other problems that our military cannot solve," he said. "And we haven't been very good at fixing what we broke in Iraq."

American commanders say they had no illusions that the Fallujah offensive would let them capture the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in Iraq, or break the back of the insurgency.

What they do not acknowledge is that seizing Fallujah does not bring them much closer to solving the occupation's most intractable problem - how to get Sunni Arabs to overcome their feelings of disenfranchisement and accept the role of a minority in a democratic Iraqi state.

Sunni Arabs make up only a fifth of Iraqis; three-fifths are Shiite Arabs and the remaining fifth are mostly Sunni Kurds. But Sunnis dominate most of the Middle East and have ruled the region now called Iraq since the Ottoman Empire. There are few signs they are willing to accept a subservient role in the new government.

In anticipating a democracy, the Americans have signaled at every turn that they foresee power flowing to the majority Shiites, and the elections scheduled for January are a way to accomplish that in a manner that appears legitimate. Hammering Fallujah is supposed to force insurgent Sunnis to realize the hopelessness of armed conflict and instead turn to the ballot box.

But it is not so easy to convince people with little concept of minority rights that a Western-style democracy will work for them. For Sunnis to accept this new style of government, they will have to be persuaded that their rights will still be respected by an American-backed Shiite-dominated ruling class, and that they will have some power and autonomy - concerns that to a lesser degree plague even the Kurds, perhaps the staunchest supporters of the American presence here.

The American commanders here hold up their recent actions in the Shiite areas of Karbala, Najaf and Sadr City as models of how overwhelming force drove rebels into legitimate politics. Fallujah will be no different, they say. But Moktada al-Sadr, the firebrand cleric who led the Shiite insurgency, has everything to gain and nothing to lose by taking part in elections. He can expect his hugely popular organization to win many seats in the national assembly and become part of the Shiite power establishment.

There is no such hope for the Sunnis, which is why the leading group of Sunni clerics, the Muslim Scholars Association, called last week for a boycott of the elections. The group says it represents 3,000 mosques across Iraq and has been staunchly anti-American since the start of the war. Still, some secular Sunnis, like the former exile Adnan Pachachi, have been more welcoming of the American presence and say they intend to take part in the elections.

Installing a working Iraqi government and police force in Fallujah is a less ambitious goal, but it too seems a stretch for the Americans. In the offensive, most of the Iraqi forces have done little actual fighting. They roll in after the Americans have already cleared city blocks of insurgents and are assigned to search buildings.

Some seem disoriented as they stand in the debris-strewn landscape, their brown uniforms spotless from not having done a lick of fighting. Little has changed since last May, when the First Armored Division laid siege to Karbala, and Iraqi security forces merely cleared weapons out of mosques.

In Mosul on Thursday, police officers at a half-dozen police stations scurried away as soon as insurgents began firing their rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov rifles. Two weeks ago, bombings and mortar attacks left at least 30 dead in Samarra, only a month after American forces swept through the city and claimed a resounding victory. A senior American military officer in Baghdad admitted that after the Americans left, the insurgents were able to overwhelm the poorly trained Iraqi police.

In Samarra, the guerrillas evacuated before American armor rolled in, and then bided their time, which is the greatest advantage an insurgency has, because the occupying force at some point will depart. The insurgents don't need a safe haven like Fallujah to run down the clock. "In fact, Maoist tactics would argue against trying to settle in a city and hold it at this stage of a weak insurgency, and for using the population as a sea to swim in," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a Middle East analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

It is absurd, Mr. Cordesman adds, to believe that destroying Fallujah and then rebuilding it will win support for the Americans and the interim government. The American military said it has put aside $100 million for reconstructing the devastated city. But that does not solve the much bigger problem of unemployment, now at 60 percent nationwide. That is a motivating factor for young men joining the insurgency.

"How much money and aid effort does it really take," Mr. Cordesman said, "to jump-start an economy rather than provide welfare for Fallujah?"

-------

Dexter Filkins contributed reporting from Fallujah for this article.

Letters From the Soldiers - Please Read
Mood:  blue
Topic: Impending Draft
Letters from soldiers

I am a soldier in the United States army. I was in Iraq with the Fourth Infantry Division.

I was guarding some Iraqi workers one day. Their task was to fill sandbags for our base. The temperature was at least 120. I had to sit there with full gear on and monitor them. I was sitting and drinking water, and I could barely tolerate the heat, so I directed the workers to go to the shade and sit and drink water. I let them rest for about 20 minutes. Then a staff sergeant told me that they didn't need a break, and that they were to fill sandbags until the cows come home. He told the Iraqis to go back to work.

After 30 minutes, I let them have a break again, thus disobeying orders. If these were soldiers working, in this heat, those soldiers would be bound to a 10-minute work, 50-minute rest cycle, to prevent heat casualties. Again the staff sergeant came and sent the Iraqis back to work and told me I could sit in the shade. I told him no, I had to be out there with them so that when I started to need water, then they would definitely need water. He told me that wasn't necessary, and that they live here, and that they are used to it.

After he left, I put the Iraqis back into the shade. I could tell that some were very dehydrated; most of them were thin enough to be on an international food aid commercial. I would not treat my fellow soldiers in this manner, so I did not treat the Iraqi workers this way either.

This went on for eight months while I was in Iraq, and going through it told me that we were not there for their freedom, we were not there for WMD. We had no idea what we were fighting for anymore.

______________

From: RH
Sent: Monday, July 12, 2003 4:57 PM
Subject: Iraqi freedom veteran supports you

Dear Mr Moore,
I went to Iraq with thoughts of killing people who I thought were horrible. I was like, "Fuck Iraq, fuck these people, I hope we kill thousands." I believed my president. He was taking care of business and wasn't going to let al Qaeda push us around. I was with the 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry, 3rd Infantry division out of Fort Stewart, Georgia. My unit was one of the first to Baghdad. I was so scared. Didn't know what to think. Seeing dead bodies for the first time. People blown in half. Little kids with no legs. It was overwhelming, the sights, sounds, fear. I was over there from Jan'03 to Aug'03. I hated every minute. It was a daily battle to keep my spirits up. I hate the army and my job. I am supposed to get out next February but will now be unable to because the asshole in the White House decided that now would be a great time to put a stop-loss in effect for the army. So I get to do a second tour in Iraq and be away from those I love again because some guy has the audacity to put others' lives on the line for his personal war. I thought we were the good guys.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From: Michael W
Sent: Tuesday July 13 2004 12.28pm
Subject: Dude, Iraq sucks


My name is Michael W and I am a 30-year-old National Guard infantryman serving in southeast Baghdad. I have been in Iraq since March of 04 and will continue to serve here until March of 05.

In the few short months my unit has been in Iraq, we have already lost one man and have had many injured (including me) in combat operations. And for what? At the very least, the government could have made sure that each of our vehicles had the proper armament to protect us soldiers.

In the early morning hours of May 10, one month to the day from my 30th birthday, I and 12 other men were attacked in a well-executed roadside ambush in south-east Baghdad. We were attacked with small-arms fire, a rocket-propelled grenade, and two well-placed roadside bombs. These roadside bombs nearly destroyed one of our Hummers and riddled my friends with shrapnel, almost killing them. They would not have had a scratch if they had the "Up Armour" kits on them. So where was [George] W [Bush] on that one?

It's just so ridiculous, which leads me to my next point. A Blackwater contractor makes $15,000 [#8,400] a month for doing the same job as my pals and me. I make about $4,000 [#2,240] a month over here. What's up with that?

Beyond that, the government is calling up more and more troops from the reserves. For what? Man, there is a huge fucking scam going on here! There are civilian contractors crawling all over this country. Blackwater, Kellogg Brown & Root, Halliburton, on and on. These contractors are doing everything you can think of from security to catering lunch!

We are spending money out the ass for this shit, and very few of the projects are going to the Iraqi people. Someone's back is getting scratched here, and it ain't the Iraqis'!

My life is left to chance at this point. I just hope I come home alive.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From: Specialist Willy
Sent: Tuesday March 9 2004 1.23pm
Subject: Thank you

Mike, I'd like to thank you for all of the support you're showing for the soldiers here in Iraq. I am in Baghdad right now, and it's such a relief to know that people still care about the lemmings who are forced to fight in this conflict.

It's hard listening to my platoon sergeant saying, "If you decide you want to kill a civilian that looks threatening, shoot him. I'd rather fill out paperwork than get one of my soldiers killed by some raghead." We are taught that if someone even looks threatening we should do something before they do something to us. I wasn't brought up in fear like that, and it's going to take some getting used to.

It's also very hard talking to people here about this war. They don't like to hear that the reason they are being torn away from their families is bullshit, or that their "president" doesn't care about them. A few people here have become quite upset with me, and at one point I was going to be discharged for constantly inciting arguments and disrespect to my commander-in-chief (Dubya). It's very hard to be silenced about this when I see the same 150 people every day just going through the motions, not sure why they are doing it.

[ Willy sent an update in early August ]

People's perceptions of this war have done a complete 180 since we got here. We had someone die in a mortar attack the first week, and ever since then, things have changed completely. Soldiers are calling their families urging them to support John Kerry. If this is happening elsewhere, it looks as if the overseas military vote that Bush is used to won't be there this time around.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From: Kyle Waldman
Sent: Friday February 27 2004 2.35am
Subject: None

As we can all obviously see, Iraq was not and is not an imminent threat to the United States or the rest of the world. My time in Iraq has taught me a little about the Iraqi people and the state of this war-torn, poverty-stricken country.

The illiteracy rate in this country is phenomenal. There were some farmers who didn't even know there was an Operation Iraqi Freedom. This was when I realised that this war was initiated by the few who would profit from it and not for its people. We, as the coalition forces, did not liberate these people; we drove them even deeper into poverty. I don't foresee any economic relief coming soon to these people by the way Bush has already diverted its oil revenues to make sure there will be enough oil for our SUVs.

We are here trying to keep peace when all we have been trained for is to destroy. How are 200,000 soldiers supposed to take control of this country? Why didn't we have an effective plan to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure? Why aren't the American people more aware of these atrocities?

My fiancee and I have seriously looked into moving to Canada as political refugees.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From: Anonymous
Sent: Thursday April 15 2004 12.41am
Subject: From KBR truck driver now in Iraq

Mike, I am a truck driver right now in Iraq. Let me give you this one small fact because I am right here at the heart of it: since I started this job several months ago, 100% (that's right, not 99%) of the workers I am aware of are inflating the hours they claim on their time sheets. There is so much more I could tell you. But the fact is that MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of dollars are being raped from both the American taxpayers and the Iraqi people because of the unbelievable amount of greed and abuse over here. And yes, my conscience does bother me because I am participating in this rip-off.




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From: Andrew Balthazor
Sent: Friday August 27 2004 1.53pm
Subject: Iraqi war vet - makes me sound so old

Mr Moore, I am an ex-military intelligence officer who served 10 months in Baghdad; I was the senior intelligence officer for the area of Baghdad that included the UN HQ and Sadr City.

Since Bush exposed my person and my friends, peers, and subordinates to unnecessary danger in a war apparently designed to generate income for a select few in the upper echelon of America, I have become wholeheartedly anti-Bush, to the chagrin of much of my pro-Republican family.

As a "foot soldier" in the "war on terror" I can personally testify that Bush's administration has failed to effectively fight terrorists or the root causes of terror. The White House and the DoD failed to plan for reconstruction of Iraq. Contracts weren't tendered until Feb-Mar of 2003, and the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (the original CPA) didn't even come into existence until January 2003. This failure to plan for the "peace" is a direct cause for the insecurity of Iraq today.

Immediately after the "war" portion of the fighting (which really ended around April 9 2003), we should have been prepared to send in a massive reconstruction effort. Right away we needed engineers to diagnose problems, we needed contractors repairing problems, we needed immediate food, water, shelter, and fuel for the Iraqi people, and we needed more security for all of this to work - which we did not have because we did not have enough troops on the ground, and CPA decided to disband the Iraqi army. The former Iraqi police were engaged far too late; a plan should have existed to bring them into the fold right away.

I've left the military. If there is anything I can do to help get Bush out of office, let me know.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From: Anthony Pietsch
Sent: Thursday August 5 2004 6.13pm
Subject: Soldier for sale

Dear Mr Moore, my name is Tony Pietsch, and I am a National Guardsman who has been stationed in Kuwait and Iraq for the past 15 months. Along with so many other guard and reserve units, my unit was put on convoy escorts. We were on gun trucks running from the bottom of Iraq to about two hours above Baghdad.

The Iraqi resistance was insanity. I spent many nights lying awake after mortar rounds had just struck areas nearby, some coming close enough to throw rocks against my tent. I've seen roadside bombs go off all over, Iraqis trying to ram the side of our vehicle. Small children giving us the finger and throwing rocks at the soldiers in the turrets. We were once lost in Baghdad and received nothing but dirty looks and angry gestures for hours.

I have personally been afraid for my life more days than I can count. We lost our first man only a few weeks before our tour was over, but it seems that all is for nothing because all we see is hostility and anger over our being there. They are angry over the abuse scandal and the collateral damages that are always occurring.

I don't know how the rest of my life will turn out, but I truly regret being a 16-year-old kid looking for some extra pocket money and a way to college.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From: Sean Huze
Sent: Sunday March 28 2004 7.56pm
Subject: "Dude, Where's My Country?"

I am an LCPL in the US Marine Corps and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Mr Moore, please keep pounding away at Bush. I'm not some pussy when it comes to war. However, the position we were put in - fighting an enemy that used women, children, and other civilians as shields; forcing us to choose between firing at "area targets" (nice way of saying firing into crowds) or being killed by the bastards using the crowds for cover - is indescribably horrible.

I saw more than a few dead children littering the streets in Nasiriyah, along with countless other civilians. And through all this, I held on to the belief that it had to be for some greater good.

Months have passed since I've been back home and the unfortunate conclusion I've come to is that Bush is a lying, manipulative motherfucker who cares nothing for the lives of those of us who serve in uniform. Hell, other than playing dress-up on aircraft carriers, what would he know about serving this nation in uniform?

His silence and refusal to speak under oath to the 9/11 Commission further mocks our country. The Patriot Act violates every principle we fight and die for. And all of this has been during his first term. Can you imagine his policies when he doesn't have to worry about re-election? We can't allow that to happen, and there are so many like me in the military who feel this way. We were lied to and used. And there aren't words to describe the sense of betrayal I feel as a result

Web abuzz with vote-rigging tales - Toronto Star
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Voting
Torono Star


John Kerry may have conceded the White House to George W. Bush, but millions of Americans have not.

My inbox is engorged with some of their emails claiming that the election was hijacked. There are appeals to "bombard" the Ohio secretary of state over the provisional ballots, pleas for "emergency funds" to force state recounts plus entreaties for "first-hand'' anecdotes for a book on election irregularities.

But you wouldn't know anything was out of the ordinary from most of the mainstream media (MSM).

Since Nov. 2, they've produced plenty of post-vote pontification over "moral values," predictions on future White House appointments and premature speculation on who will run against whom in 2008.

Meanwhile, there's practically nothing on the issue consuming my bandwidth and clogging my computer.

The Nation's David Corn feels my pain.

"The election's been stolen! Fraud! John Kerry won!" he writes in the latest issue. "In the (post-election) days, these charges flew over the Internet. The basic claim was that the early exit polls ? which showed Kerry ahead of George W. Bush ? were right; the vote tallies were rigged. Could this be? Or have ballot booths with electronic voting machines become the new Grassy Knoll for conspiracy theorists?"

Yes ... and no.

No because, in many jurisdictions, including the contentious Ohio and Florida, real problems have been reported. Some local MSM (e.g. the Cincinnati Inquirer) and all kinds of websites (VotersUnite.org, to name one) have documented incidences of machine malfunctions, discrepancies between exit poll results and actual votes, "disappeared" votes, "extra" votes and other problems.

Yes because, thanks to a patchwork system of machine and paper ballots, a vast and confusing array of irregularities are turning up in many different counties. That means little coherence and much chaos, propelling wild rumours around the cyberspace, along with legitimate accounts of trouble.

But is that any reason to discount the story? What little MSM reporting there is of the irregularities is done with the intent of discrediting any potential case, however flimsy, against certifying the election results.

"Mocking us as `spreadsheet-wielding conspiracy theorists,' (Washington) Post reporters Manuel Roig-Franzia and Dan Keating signalled their determination to put questions about Bush's victory outside the bounds of responsible debate," noted Sam Parry of Consortium News on Friday, before launching into a post-mortem of the paper's "sloppy mistakes and untrue assertions."

Also on Friday, the New York Times took a crack at the votejacking charges only to conclude that there is no there there.

"I'd give my right arm for Internet rumours of a stolen election to be true," David Wade, a Kerry campaign spokesperson, tells the paper. "But blogging it doesn't make it so."

This brings us to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, host of the best, although not best-rated, weeknight hour on U.S. cable. His Countdown With Keith Olbermann (at 8 and midnight) is a smart and snarky look at the day's events, with little of the spin you typically find on TV.

Not surprising, then, that Olbermann has been almost a lone voice in the MSM's treatment of voting irregularities, earning him hero status in blogistan.

Last Tuesday night, he asked Congressional Quarterly columnist Craig Crawford if "every news organization (gave) up on this story the moment John Kerry conceded the election." He got this reply:

"The glib answer, which is part of the truth, is I think everybody was tired after that election. And it was a gruelling one. And so, since John Kerry ? and this is the second factor ? since Kerry conceded, there wasn't the great desire to run out to Columbus or wherever and try to figure this stuff out. And the concession is the key, because we're often wimps in the media. And we wait for other people to make charges, one political party or another, and then we investigate."

Which once again confirms how journalism is dead while stenography lives and thrives.

Just like they did in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the media are not asking the questions they should be asking.

I am not saying that, given all the irregularities put together, the election outcome would be any different. I am just wondering why there's been precious little probing of the problems and how they must be fixed before the next election.

Of course, driving all these charges of election hijacking is a healthy dose of paranoia based on the all-too-real 2000 election mess. Mix in bewilderment over how so many Americans swallowed the Bush administration lies about 9/11 and Iraq with a generous helping of sore loserdom ? and you have the perfect recipe for a conspiracy theory.

But this is one cow pie that stinks to high heaven. You have to wonder why the media aren't sniffing around it.

Oh Brother, Ohio, and O'Reilly (Keith Olbermann)
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Voting
SECURE UNDISCLOSED LOCATION? Keep your aluminum foil hats at the ready.

The purported linking of failed Florida congressional candidate Jeff Fisher and Ralph Nader, trumpeted on Fisher?s website, is news
Nader?s spokesman Kevin Zeese.

That?s particularly troublesome for Mr. Fisher because it is to Zeese that the connection is attributed:

?Kevin Zeese,? the Fisher site reads, ?officially announced that Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader will be consulting with Jeff Fisher and Jan Schneider regarding the investigation of voter fraud and a statewide recount for the state of Florida.?

When the nose-to-the-grindstone Countdown staff (as opposed to me, vacation boy) contacted Zeese, he said it was the first he?d heard of any ?official announcement.? Zeese acknowledges he?d spoken to Fisher, and surmises, correctly I think, that Fisher (he lost in the Florida 16th) and Schneider (she lost in the 13th, to Katherine Harris) were trying to increase their credibility by tying their efforts to the Nader campaign. Given the pounding Nader?s gotten for four years, Zeese laughed out loud at the irony.

Fisher has been cited in many places as claiming he has firm evidence of deliberate computer-hacking in the Florida vote, and was awaiting FBI agents with whom he was to share it. Not to dismiss him or his claims, but the show?s contact with him was not encouraging. He spoke vaguely of sources and whispered a lot.

Hell, ?Deep Throat? from Watergate whispered a lot.

Then again, so does the guy who wanders around Columbus Circle claiming the government caused the Red Sox to win the World Series.



We?ll reserve judgment on Mr. Fisher?s claims? and keep them out of this space until and unless they have stronger legs. But the ?consulting? role with Nader isn?t the case, and bodes ill for Fisher?s other assertions.

Meanwhile in Ohio, it?s not exactly the lead story on Nightly News, but the verifying of the provisional ballots has gotten the attention of the most influential, and underrated, news source in the country? the Associated Press. It is from this wire service that most smaller newspapers and nearly all local and national radio and television news departments glean their national material (and from which, though they?d never admit it, most newspaper columnists, draw most of their data).

The AP reports that by yesterday, 11 of Ohio?s 88 counties had completed vetting the provisionals and that ten of the districts have accepted the validity of more than 90 percent of them. One? Belmont County (along the West Virginia border)? has tossed 42%, and nearing the halfway mark in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), the election board there has accepted about two-thirds.


And this afternoon, the AP?s TV and radio columnist Frazier Moore wrote a withering satire of the post-election television political landscape, so much in the manner of Jonathan Swift that it has been forwarded to me by conservatives claiming it ?proves? there?s no reason to cover any voting issues. Generally speaking, mainstream silence seems to be passing: Sunday, the Hartford Courant printed an op-ed from the Associate Dean of the Yale Law School, Ian Solomon - one of those Democratic lawyers dispatched to Florida to ?watch? the election - who suggested the monitors had been too busy verifying the paper ballots to pay attention to the prospect of computerized irregularities (thus, Dean Solomon admitted, ?I might have been an unwitting accessory to fraud.?)

The Boston Globe plans a piece on the silence? which still seems more a case of media passivity than conspiracy?in the next few days. Even the
Washington Times addressed it yesterday (albeit with the headline ?Anti-Bush Internet Site Angles For Election Probe?) by focusing on MoveOn.org?s ?Investigate the Vote? campaign. Jerrold Nadler of New York, one of six Democratic congressmen who demanded an investigation by the General Accountability Office in the days after the election, says now he anticipates a response from the GAO by the end of this week, and that could stir the pot a little further.

We may even have seen something of a reaction to this story on Fox News. There, our old loofah-wielding friend Bill O?Reilly is at it again, wandering further and further into semi-lucidity and self-contradiction. As reported by
Brian Stelter over at TVNewser O?Reilly managed to put himself at direct odds with his own boss, Roger Ailes.

?The Pew Research Center is out with which media was most trusted during the presidential campaign,? O?Reilly stated Monday night. ?On the TV side, Fox News wins big? Dead last was MSNBC, which was six percent of Americans trusting them. Obviously they have major problems over there.?

As usual when dealing with the O?Reilly Fact-or-Fiction, he leaves himself so open to fact-checking on so many fronts, that it?s difficult to decide where to thrust the first sword.

Let?s start with the Pew poll. Firstly, it had nothing to do with which media was ?most trusted? ? it only asked where people got most of their news on the election. And using Fox?s own criteria? they?re right and everybody else ranges from liberal to treasonous? they were cited as the respondents? primary source by 21%, compared to the NBC/MSNBC/CNBC combination (also 21%), and compared to the combined three broadcast network news departments (29%). The Internet was also cited as a primary source by 21%, suggesting respondents were permitted to give more than one answer. This not only isn?t ?Fox News wins big;? using some of the same massaging of numbers O?Reilly is fond of, it?s not even ?Fox News wins at all.?

Sorry about that ?massaging? reference to O?Reilly in there. Poor choice of words.

Most intriguingly, O?Reilly?s employer, Mr. Ailes, recently dismissed the company that did the survey O?Reilly trumpeted so loudly. In its recent piece on the network, "The New York Times" noted that Pew?s June survey reported that 41 percent of Fox News viewers identified themselves as Republicans, and 52 percent of them called themselves Conservatives.

Roger Ailes then told the paper that the Pew Research Center had produced ?a totally fraudulent survey done by a bunch of liberals.?

So O?Reilly is reduced to relying on a polling company that his boss believes traffics in ?totally fraudulent surveys,? to altering the questions posed by that company to fit his own boasts, and to accepting those numbers he likes from that polling and ignoring the ones he doesn?t.

Sounds like somebody hasn?t had a good falafel in awhile.

Comments? E-mail me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

Glibs reach their recount dough count (Keith Olbermann)
Mood:  happy
Topic: Voting
SECURE UNDISCLOSED LOCATION? A presidential vote recount in Ohio seems inevitable today with the announcement from Green Party candidate David Cobb that he and the Libertarians' Michael Badnarik have raised $150,000 in donations to meet filing fees and expenses.

That fund-raising goal was set last Thursday; on
Cobb's website the two parties now say they're going to try to raise an additional $100,000 for "training, mobilizing, and per diem expenses" for those "thousands" who'll be involved in the statewide effort. They're also calling for volunteers from Ohio, and elsewhere, to be the Green/Lib observers in the county-by-county process, or house out-of-state volunteers.

I swear: I'm on vacation (Keith Olbermann)
Mood:  accident prone
Topic: Voting
SECURE UNDISCLOSED LOCATION?Golly, I?ve never been the subject of a conspiracy theory before.

Yet, there it is, flying around the Internet under the byline of a Peter Coyote: that when I attempted to break the ?lock-down? of coverage of the voting irregularities story in the media during Friday night?s edition of Countdown, I was fired, and left the studio in the middle of the program.

Um, no, actually.

I?m on vacation? it?s been scheduled since August; I?ll be blogging in the interim; Countdown will continue to cover the story in my absence; I not only wasn?t fired for ?mentioning? the story - but we covered it five nights in a row; and, I?ll be back on television on the 22nd (earlier, if developments warrant).

But we can now trace how just a dollop of the truth can be subverted into an item available for purchase in the Tin Foil Hat District - and we have another reminder that what you read on the Web, no matter how much it might fit your beliefs, anxieties, or even other facts, might still resemble more a game of telephone than actual investigative reporting.

I?m reminded suddenly of the lyric from The Talking Heads? ?Life During Wartime?: ?Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit? Heard about Pittsburgh, PA??

What happened was this. We end nearly every Friday show with a news quiz. Each week my colleague Monica Novotny asks me a series of questions sent in by viewers. If I get half or more correct, I win a ?prize? - if not, I suffer a ?punishment.? This edition?s prize was a week?s vacation. I feigned surprise, asked when it began, was told it began whenever I wanted, and promptly got up and literally ran off the set.

Two insider facts:

a) We planned that gag to tamp down any surprise or speculation if people tuned in Monday and didn?t see me (I assumed reactions would divide into three groups: ones from the left which assumed I?d been ?silenced,? ones from the right which assumed I?d been ?suspended,? and, the largest group by far, ones who couldn?t care less).

b) The rest of the show is live, but, for reasons of technical complexity, we always pre-tape the quiz in advance. The whole running-off-the-set gag was recorded at 7:45. Temporally speaking, my ?mid-show firing? occurred before the newscast itself.

Thanks, though, to all who e-mailed fearing a reply ?Olbermann? No Olbermann ever worked here.? The e-mail volume since the first blog last week, incidentally, is up to 27,000 as of 2 PM ET Sunday, and it continues to run at about 22:1 in favor, with the ?ones? boiling down to messages like ?get over it? and the cordial greeting from a woman in late middle age: ?Shut the F up.? We do learn from this correspondence that not a lot of people like Ann Coulter, and that the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is so infrequently read that the oxygen over there is being utterly wasted.

There is another fallacy in the Olbermann?s Been Disappeared story, and it?s the very idea that there is a ?media lock-down? of coverage. Nobody can argue that the MSM has been vigorous here - nor, in television?s case, anything but largely dismissive - but you can ring that up much more to hauteur than to censorship.


On Friday, David Shuster, who has already done some excellent research at Hardblogger, did a piece on the mess for Hardball, and Chris followed up with a discussion with Joe Trippi and Susan Molinari. There was a cogent, reasoned, unexcited piece about the mechanics of possible tampering and/or machine failure on CNN?s ?Next? yesterday, and Saturday alone there were serious news pieces in the Cincinnati Enquirer, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Los Angeles Times, Salt Lake Tribune, and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. NPR did a segment of its ?On The Media? on the topic (with said blogger as the guest).

And today the New York Times continues its series of ?Making Vote Counts? editorials with a pretty solid stance on the necessity of journalistic and governmental proof that the elections weren?t tampered with, nor the victims of Speak & Spell toys retro-fitted as electronic voting units. By way of contrast, though, the Houston Chronicle has an editorial so puerile that it may be the most naive thing I?ve ever read that was actually written by a grown-up.

I suspect the coverage is going to go through the roof as the news spreads that Nader has gotten his recount in New Hampshire, and that the Greens and Libertarians are actually going to get their Ohio recount. When reporters discover what Jonathan Turley pointed out to us on Tuesday?s show, namely that 70% of Ohio?s votes were done with punch cards and as Florida proved in 2000, in court, a lot of those punch cards? as Jon put it? ?turn over,? I suspect there will be long-form television on the process. As an aside: as of earlier today, the Green/Libs? should we just go ahead and call them the Glibs?? were at $118,000 towards their Ohio war-chest goal of $150,000. I?ve gotten a peck of e-mails about why neither party?s Website has details, and it turns out the site you want on this is VoteCobb.Org.


All that having been said, the most remarkable read of the day is probably the item buried on page A5 of The Washington Post. (Registration required but free). There, Charles Babington and Brian Faler take the wind out of the primary post-election grist for the yak-fests of radio and television: the overwhelming relevance of ?Moral Values? to 2004?s presidential voters.

You will recall that the Exit Polling on November 2nd ranked the most important issues as follows:

Moral Values, 22%
Economy and Jobs, 20%
Terrorism, 19%
Iraq, 15%
The authors point out that those results came when pollsters offered voters a list of which issues factored most into their decision to vote. They note that last week, Pew Research went back and surveyed voters again, and took their temperatures in two ways? with a list (as was offered on election day), and without one (in other words, voters had to remember their issues; it ceased to be multiple choice). Those working off the checklist responded similarly to the election day exit pollees:

Moral Values, 27%
Iraq, 22%
Economy and Jobs, 21%
Terrorism, 14%
But the free-form Pew survey produced entirely different data. Given nothing to work with, simply asked to name the deciding factor in their vote, ?moral values? shrunk back to human size:

Other, 31%
Iraq, 25%
Moral Values, 14%
Economy and Jobs, 12%
Terrorism, 9%
Babington and Faler point out that ?other? included such gems as not liking Bush, not liking Kerry, honesty, and presumably ?I was following instructions from Jon Stewart.?

Oh and by the way: how come the ?Kerry?s winning? part of the election night exit polling is presumed to have been wrong, or tampered with, but the ?Moral Values? part of the same polling is graded flawless, and marks the dawn of a new American century?

On Vaco but still reading your e-mails. Write to me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

Evangelical Christianity Has Been Hijacked
Mood:  bright
Topic: Church and State
'Evangelical Christianity Has Been Hijacked':

An Interview with Tony Campolo

Interview by Laura Sheahen
BeliefNet.com

Friday 12 November 2004

Speaking out on gays, women and more, a progressive evangelical says 'We ought to get out of the judging business.'

Evangelical leader, sociology professor, and Baptist minister Tony Campolo made headlines in the 1990s when he agreed to be a spiritual counselor to President Bill Clinton.

A self-described Bible-believing Christian, he has drawn fire from his fellow evangelicals for his stance on contemporary issues like homosexuality.

He talked with Beliefnet recently about his new book, Speaking My Mind.

Q - It's a common perception that evangelical Christians are conservative on issues like gay marriage, Islam, and women?s roles. Is this the case?

A - Well, there's a difference between evangelical and being a part of the Religious Right. A significant proportion of the evangelical community is part of the Religious Right. My purpose in writing the book was to communicate loud and clear that I felt that evangelical Christianity had been hijacked.

Q - When did it become anti-feminist? When did evangelical Christianity become anti-gay? When did it become supportive of capital punishment? Pro-war? When did it become so negative towards other religious groups?

A - There are a group of evangelicals who would say, "Wait a minute. We?re evangelicals but we want to respect Islam. We don?t want to call its prophet evil. We don?t want to call the religion evil. We believe that we have got to learn to live in the same world with our Islamic brothers and sisters and we want to be friends. We do not want to be in some kind of a holy war."

We also raise some very serious questions about the support of policies that have been detrimental to the poor. When I read the voter guide of a group like the Christian Coalition, I find that they are allied with the National Rifle Association and are very anxious to protect the rights of people to buy even assault weapons. But they don?t seem to be very supportive of concerns for the poor, concerns for trade relations, for canceling Third World debts.

In short, there?s a whole group of issues that are being ignored by the Religious Right and that warrant the attention of Bible-believing Christians. Another one would be the environment.

I don?t think that John Kerry is the Messiah or the Democratic Party is the answer, but I don?t like the evangelical community blessing the Republican Party as some kind of God-ordained instrument for solving the world?s problems. The Republican Party needs to be called into accountability even as the Democratic Party needs to be called into accountability. So it?s that double-edged sword that I?m trying to wield.

Q - Are the majority of evangelicals in America leaning conservative because they see their leaders on TV that way? Or is there a contingent out there that we don?t hear about in the press that is more progressive on the issues you just talked about?

A - The latest statistics that I have seen on evangelicals indicate that something like 83 percent of them are going to vote for George Bush and are Republicans. And there?s nothing wrong with that. It?s just that Christians need to be considering other issues beside abortion and homosexuality.

These are important issues, but isn?t poverty an issue? When you pass a bill of tax reform that not only gives the upper five percent most of the benefits, leaving very little behind for the rest of us, you have to ask some very serious questions. When that results in 300,000 slots for children's afterschool tutoring in poor neighborhoods being cut from the budget. When one and a half billion dollars is cut from the "No Child Left Behind" program.

In short, I think that evangelicals are so concerned with the unborn?as we should be?that we have failed to pay enough attention to the born?to those children who do live and who are being left behind by a system that has gone in favor of corporate interests and big money.

So as an evangelical, I find myself very torn, because I am a pro-life person. I understand evangelicals who say there comes a time when one issue is so overpowering that we have to vote for the candidate that espouses a pro-life position, even if we disagree with him on a lot of other issues.

My response to that is OK, the Republican party and George Bush know that they have the evangelical community in its pocket?[but] they can?t win the election without us. Given this position, shouldn?t we be using our incredible position of influence to get the president and his party to address a whole host of other issues which we think are being neglected?

Q - Like what you just said - poverty, or our foreign policy?

A - Exactly. And we would also point out that the evangelical community has become so pro-Israel that it is forgotten that God loves Palestinians every bit as much. And that a significant proportion of the Palestinian community is Christian. We?re turning our back on our own Christian brothers and sisters in an effort to maintain a pro-Zionist mindset that I don?t think most Jewish people support. For instance, most Jewish people really support a two-state solution to the Palestinian crisis. Interestingly enough, George Bush supports a two-state solution.

He?s the first president to actually say that the Palestinians should have a state of their own with their own government. However, he?s received tremendous opposition from evangelicals on that very point.

Evangelicals need to take a good look at what their issues are. Are they really being faithful to Jesus? Are they being faithful to the Bible? Are they adhering to the kinds of teachings that Christ made clear?

In the book, I take issue, for instance, with the increasing tendency in the evangelical community to bar women from key leadership roles in the church. Over the last few years, the Southern Baptist Convention has taken away the right of women to be ordained to ministry. There were women that were ordained to ministry?their ordinations have been negated and women are told that this is not a place for them. They are not to be pastors.

They point to certain passages in the Book of Timothy to make their case, but tend to ignore that there are other passages in the Bible that would raise very serious questions about that position and which, in fact, would legitimate women being in leadership positions in the church. In Galatians, it says that in Christ there's neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, all are one in Christ Jesus. In the Book of Acts, the Bible is very clear that when the Holy Spirit comes upon the Church that both men and women begin to prophesy, that preaching now belongs to both men and women. Phillip had four daughters, all of whom prophesied, which we know means preaching in biblical language. I?d like to point out that in the 16th chapter of Romans, the seventh verse, we have reference to Junia. Junia was a woman and she held the high office of apostle in the early Church. What is frightening to me is that in the New International Translation of the Scriptures, the word Junia was deliberately changed to Junius to make it male.

I?m saying, let?s be faithful to the Bible. You can make your point, but there are those of us equally committed to Scripture who make a very strong case that women should be in key leaderships in the Church. We don?t want to communicate the idea that to believe the Bible is to necessarily be opposed to women in key roles of leadership in the life of early Christendom.

Q - What position do you wish American evangelicals would take on homosexuality?

A - As an evangelical who takes the Bible very seriously, I come to the first chapter of Romans and feel there is sufficient evidence there to say that same-gender eroticism is not a Christian lifestyle. That?s my position.

Q - So you mean homosexual activity?

A - That?s right. What I think the evangelical community has to face up to, however, is what almost every social scientist knows, and I?m one of them, and that is that people do not choose to be gay. I don?t know what causes homosexuality, I have no idea. Neither does anybody else. There isn?t enough evidence to support those who would say it?s an inborn theory. There isn?t enough evidence to support those who say it?s because of socialization.

I?m upset because the general theme in the evangelical community, propagated from one end of this country to the other--especially on religious radio--is that people become gay because the male does not have a strong father image with which to identify. That puts the burden of people becoming homosexual on parents.

Most parents who have homosexual children are upset because of the suffering their children have to go through living in a homophobic world. What they don?t need is for the Church to come along and to lay a guilt trip on top of them and say ?And your children are homosexual because of you. If you would have been the right kind of parent, this would have never happened.? That kind of thinking is common in the evangelical Church and the book attacks on solid sociological, psychological, biological grounds.

But even if evangelicals came to believe that it was not a choice, how should they approach the topic?

Well, beyond that, they seem to offer an absolute solution to the problem. They are saying, ?We can change every gay. We can change every lesbian.? I have heard enough of the brothers and sisters give testimonies of having changed their sexual orientation to doubt them?I believe them. But that?s rare: people who stand up and say, ?I was gay but Jesus came into my life and now I?m not homosexual anymore.?

But the overwhelming proportion of the gay community that love Jesus, that go to church, that are deeply committed in spiritual things, try to change and can?t change. And the Church acts as though they are just stubborn and unwilling, when in reality they can?t change. To propose that every gay with proper counseling and proper prayer can change their orientation is to create a mentality where parents are angry with their children, saying, "You are a gay person because you don?t want to change and you?re hurting your mother and your father and your family and you?re embarrassing us all."

These young people cannot change. What they are begging for, and what we as Church people have a responsibility to give them, is loving affirmation as they are. That does not mean that we support same-gender eroticism.

Q - What do you wish evangelicals might accept in terms of salvation for non-Christians?

A - We ought to get out of the judging business. We should leave it up to God to determine who belongs in one arena or another when it comes to eternity. What we are obligated to do is to tell people about Jesus and that?s what I do. I try to do it every day of my life.

I don?t know of any other way of salvation, excerpt through Jesus Christ. Now, if you were going to ask me, "Are only Christians going to get to heaven?" I can?t answer that question, because I can only speak from the Christian perspective, from my own convictions and from my own experience. I do not claim to be able to read the mind of God and when evangelicals make these statements, I have some very serious concerns.

For instance, they say unless a person accepts Jesus as his personal savior or her personal savior, that person is doomed forever to live apart from God. Well, what about the many, many children every year who die in infancy or the many children who die almost in childbirth and what about people who are suffering from intellectual disabilities? Is there not some grace from God towards such people? Are evangelical brothers and sisters of mine really suggesting that these people will burn in hell forever?

And I would have to say what about all the people in the Old Testament days? They didn?t have a chance to accept Jesus.

I don?t know how far the grace of God does expand and I?m sure that what the 25th chapter of Matthew says is correct--that there will be a lot of surprises on Judgment Day as to who receives eternal life and who doesn?t. But in the book I try to make the case that we have to stop our exclusivistic, judgmental mentality. Let us preach Christ, let us be faithful to proclaiming the Gospel, but let?s leave judgment in the hands of God.

But in the book you also mention the decline of mainline churches. Some people would say that this lack of taking a firm stand is wishy-washy, and that if evangelicalism is infected by relativism, that could be its downfall as well.

I didn?t say anything that was relativistic. I am just saying that when we don?t know what we?re talking about, we shouldn?t make absolute statements. And we don?t know how God will judge in the end. We do not know the mind of God.

As for mainline churches declining, my own particular analysis is that they're declining because they have been so concerned about social justice issues that they forgot to put a major emphasis on bringing people into a close, personal, transforming relationship with God. The Pentecostal churches, the evangelical churches, attract people who are hungry to know God, not just as a theology, not just as a moral teacher, not just as a social justice advocate, but as someone who can invade them, possess them, transform them from within, strengthen them for their everyday struggles, enable them to overcome the guilt they feel for things in the past.

Mainline churches have not sufficiently nurtured that kind of Christianity. They believe in it, they articulate it, it?s not where they put enough emphasis. They are not putting enough emphasis on getting people into a personal, I use the word mystical, transforming relationship with Christ.

I think that Christianity has two emphases. One is a social emphasis to impart the values of the kingdom of God in society?to relieve the sufferings of the poor, to stand up for the oppressed, to be a voice for those who have no voice. The other emphasis is to bring people into a personal, transforming relationship with Christ, where they feel the joy and the love of God in their lives. That they manifest what the fifth chapter of Galatians calls "the fruit of the Spirit." Fundamentalism has emphasized the latter, mainline churches have emphasized the former. We cannot neglect the one for the other.

Q - In your book, you put forward a sort of ideal creed for 21st-century evangelicals. What?s most crucial to understand about the additions you made to this creed?

A - The Apostle?s Creed I think is the ultimate measure for Christians. Some say it goes back as far as 1800 years. It has been the standard statement of faith that the Church has maintained, and I wanted to say, "An evangelical is someone who believes in the doctrines of the Apostle?s Creed." However, the thing that evangelicals would add to the Apostle?s Creed is their view of holy scripture. They contend, and I contend, that the Bible is an infallible message from God, inspired. The writers were inspired by the Holy Spirit and [the Bible] is a message that provides an infallible guide for faith and practice.

And not only that. It's necessary to know Jesus in an intimate and personal way. That's what it means to be an evangelical. I don't think it means evangelicals are necessarily in favor of capital punishment. I'm one evangelical that is opposed to capital punishment. I do not believe being an evangelical means women should be debarred from pastoral ministry. I believe women do have a right to be in ministry. It doesn't mean evangelicals are supportive of the Republican party in all respects, because here's one evangelical who says "I think the Republican party has been the party of the rich, and has forgotten many ethnic groups and many poor people."

I am an evangelical who holds to those three positions [Creed, Bible, personal relationship with Jesus] and is a strong environmentalist. I am an evangelical who raises very specific questions about war in general, but specifically the war in Iraq. The evangelical community has been far too supportive of militarism.

Q - You were criticized when you counseled Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. Are you still in touch with Clinton?

A - Yes, and very much in the way I was before: trying to be a faithful follower of Jesus. I think it's the task of Christians to speak truth to power.

The president of the United States called upon me to help him and nurture him into some kind of relationship with God. He obviously had strayed away from what he knew was right, and he called me one day and said can you help me?

I don't know what you're supposed to say to that: "I'm sorry, but evangelicals only pray with Republicans?"

I was appalled that evangelical leaders wrote me nasty letters and said you should have no time for this man after what he's done to this country, to Monica Lewinsky, to his family. I can't understand that mentality. We're talking about being the follower of a Jesus who would never turn his back on any person seeking help.

If you're an evangelical, you should believe that every person, no matter how low or high, is capable of being converted, of repentance.

Q - If John Kerry or George W. Bush were to call you up and ask for your guidance on issues facing America today, what would you tell each of them in turn?

A - To Kerry, I think my major issue would be "Do you understand us? Do you understand evangelicals and why we're so upset about the pro-life issue? Do you understand why we believe all life is sacred?" I'd encourage him to do justice and to do righteousness.

To George Bush, I'd say "The God of scripture is a God who calls us to protect the environment. I don't think your administration has done that very well. The God of scripture calls us to be peacemakers. We follow a Jesus who said those who live by the sword will die by the sword, who called us to be agents of reconciliation."

I would point out to George Bush that the Christ that he follows says "blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy"-which doesn't go along with capital punishment.

I would say different things to each candidate, but I would respond instantaneously to the invitation to speak to each of them. All the way to the White House, I would be praying, "God, keep me from chickening out. Help me to not be so overawed by the high office of these people that I fail to recognize I answer to a higher authority."

A Legitimate Recount Effort in Ohio
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Voting
A Legitimate Recount Effort in Ohio
By Steven Rosenfeld
AlterNet.org

Friday 12 November 2004

An effort led by Common Cause and the Alliance for Democracy is underway in Ohio to conduct a statewide recount.

Efforts to launch an official statewide recount of the Ohio presidential vote are underway. While it's unclear if a recount will result in a Kerry victory, it's likely to highlight many flaws in Ohio elections that may have tilted results toward Republicans and against Democrats.

Common Cause of Ohio and the Alliance for Democracy, a progressive coalition, Thursday announced they were launching a recount campaign for Ohio. Columbus, Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck, who represents both groups, said both the Green Party and Libertarian Party presidential candidates would seek a recount if the $110,000 filing fee could be raised.

"Common Cause and the Alliance for Democracy are not partisan. The purpose of the recount is to verify the honesty of the process," Arnebeck said. "That is in the interest of anyone who would be declared the winner."

A coalition of progressive groups will hold a public hearing on election abuses this Saturday in Columbus calling on the Kerry campaign to pay for the recount.

Meanwhile, they have created a Web page to collect donations at the Alliance for Democracy site. The Kerry campaign reportedly was sending lawyers to Ohio to look into election irregularities, but Arnebeck said only the public interest groups were now committed to a recount.

While there have been many accounts of problems associated with the Ohio vote, from reports of 90,000 spoiled ballots, to software glitches resulting in more votes tallied than the number of registered voters, to new voters not being notified where their polling places were, to too few voting machines in Democratic strongholds, the only legal process that could immediately address some of these concerns is a recount.

The recount would be just that: a recounting of all the votes cast. If the results change, meaning more votes are added to Kerry's total ? then the official result, what the secretary of state certifies, is changed.

"It's re-certified," Arnebeck said. "If Kerry emerges victorious, he's president." Of course, a certification in Kerry's favor for Ohio won't take away the fact that Bush won the popular vote by 3.5 million votes.

And he clock is ticking on the Ohio process. In coming days, the Ohio secretary of state is expected to announce that the provisional ballots have been counted. A losing candidate for president then has 5 days to request a recount, filing the paperwork and filing fee.

That cost is $10 per precinct, which comes to slightly more than $110,000. As of Friday morning, $35,000 had been raised. There is a possibility that not all Ohio counties will finish the provsional ballot count, which would prompt those seeking the recount to pursue other actions, Arnebeck said.

In Florida in 2000, before the Supreme Court interceded in the election outcome, there was no statewide recount conducted. A coalition of newspapers later analyzed the vote, in essence, doing their own recount.

They found Al Gore had won.

That result was spun by those defending George W. Bush, however, saying that the smaller number of counties where Gore wanted a recount would not have made Gore president.

There is a big difference between this effort and what Bev Harris and Black Box Voting are doing. That group, which is investigating computer voting fraud, is making Freedom of Information Act requests.

That does not have the force of law behind it to change election results, unless it is entered as evidence in litigation sparked by a recount. The recount sought by the Ohio groups can revise the official state count.

There are three new areas where votes can come from in Ohio: absentee ballots, provisional ballots, and computer errors. Arnebeck said he has evidence how in one rural county more computer votes were counted than there were registered voters.

Arnebeck said that the issue has been referred to the FBI.

Arnebeck also said that the provisional ballots are also thought to favor Kerry, adding that this week the Ohio Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell was issuing new orders to disqualify provisional ballots if the voter did not enter their dates of birth. That shows how political a supposedly mechanical process already has become.

On the other hand, there are aspects of Ohio's vote that a recount is not likely to resolve. Questions such as what happened to people who did not vote ? because they never received notifications after registering by mail, or because of long lines and too few voting machines in their precincts, may not get addressed, as a recount is a formal procedure where local election officials redo the count.

In Franklin County, where Columbus is located, for example, there was a clear pattern of a shortage of voting machines in Democratic inner city precincts, where new registrations skyrocketed, compared to the more middle-class white, GOP-dominated suburbs.

Deliberately putting too few machines would violate the national Voting Rights Act. But that's hard to prove - especially because the county's election supervisor has said all the local boards are bipartisan. On the other hand, Ohio activists point out that people with longtime GOP ties supervised the county's election.

Still, there are many things that a recount could yield - apart from the possibility of Kerry victory. There is a tremendous need for a plausible explanation of what actually happened on Election Day in Ohio. Kerry's Wednesday morning concession pre-empted that explanation.

"Many people are saying, why bother to do this? The answer is we have not gathered all the facts," Arnebeck said. "Until you recount the votes, and look at the possibility of a sophisticated computer fix, you cannot draw conclusions.

Whatever it costs to properly analyze this is nothing in terms of enabling the country to move forward. They just have to raise the money to officially file the recount request. The case is ready."