The Smart Choice

This is what I hoped / suspected might be happening...

--ryan


Inside The Election Fraud Battle - Think Kerry Is Not Involved In This Fight?

by Betsy R. Vazquez


NOVEMBER 10, 2004 - When Senator John Kerry (D-MA) talked about
how his policy would be different in Iraq, he kept saying, in
effect, 'It's the how, stupid.' He said repeatedly he would
fight a "smarter" war.

Flash forward to today. Following the election, there was a
problem apparent. The exit polling didn't match the ballot
count, and many reasons for that began to become apparent.
John Kerry was faced with three options. One, fight on publicly
rather than conceding and put the nation into a media frenzied
limbo. Two, concede and go on with his life, turning his back on
his promise to his supporters to ensure that "every vote will be
counted."

Most people are assuming that John Kerry opted for the second of
these while John Edwards, his runningmate, opted for the first,
and since Kerry was the big dog, he won out. But people who
think this are thinking in Bush terms, all or nothing, either you
are for the war or against it, that either Senator Kerry was for
recounting the votes or he was against it.

The reality is, John Kerry has chosen a third, much smarter
course - just as he said he would all along.

John Kerry realized that to launch a public campaign calling the
vote into question would be disastrous. In fact, he likely
realized he would we walking right into a Bush-set booby trap.
In particular, during our election coverage we talked about the
pending battle of Fallujah, about the timing of it being an
election ploy, about how it was following in the constant Bush
pattern of creating a media event to sway the election, as he did
last time by making the run up to the Iraq invasion come to a
head exactly on election week.

Well, the battle in Fallujah began hitting the media hard in the
week before the election, right on cue. Of course it was billed
as the solution, the battle that - if you just keep Bush in
office - will wipe out those insurgents and solve the problems
over there. This was yet another obvious use of our nation's
troops by President Bush as if they were campaign volunteers
rather than non-partisan volunteers to defend our nation.
But Fallujah, it turns out, seems to be even more than that.
Fallujah, in effect, was the get away car for an election heist.
Following the fiasco in Florida in 2000, Gore was able to battle
on for 30 days to try and get a fair accounting. All the while,
the Bush camp claimed he should just stop and give up because his
delaying of what they were saying was the inevitable end was
threatening the nation's security and stability. They said the
stock market was suffering, the nation was unstable, and so Gore
should just give up and accept the result as is.

This time, John Kerry had made clear he was prepared to fight 100
times as hard and long as Gore did if necessary. In fact, he had
solicited fund just for that eventuality so he could battle all
over the nation if necessary to ensure that every vote was
properly counted.

Enter Fallujah. As we know - and saw on election night, as
Bush's people began calling Networks and demanding they call Ohio
for their camp - the Bush team's strategy was to try and force
all questions to be closed ASAP. Last time, they weren't
prepared for that part. This time, they were.

Picture if John Kerry had chosen to call the election into
question. Immediately, the Bush camp would talk about how 50,000
of our troops are just about to launch the biggest military
operation since the invasion of Baghdad. And, just a couple of
days after the election, it was launched.

You can imagine the arguments from the Bushies: "How could
Senator Kerry undermine our security while our troops are in the
midst of battle." Fallujah was to be the pressure point that
would, if not stop Kerry from uncovering all the dirt and getting
a fair election count, would at least tarnish his name with much
of the nation and, as importantly, create something for the
right-wing dominated media to hammer away at him on, making it
seem as if he is only caring about himself and not the nation.
It was quite a well-crafted plan. Completely amoral, but smart.
Unfortunately for them, John Kerry was smarter.

As Keith Olbermann of MSNBC, who has been about the only
mainstream journalist to actually follow up on the many serious
problems with regard to the integrity of the election, has
pointed out, a concession speech, in effect, means nothing. It
is not legally binding.

So, if you were thinking like a Bush goon, you would expect that
either Kerry would stand up to the mischief that went on, not
conceding in the meantime, and so your booby trap would work
perfectly, or that he would just give up and let it go, as wimpy
Democrats are prone to do.

But John Kerry chose a smarter course. Ask yourself the
question, what if John Kerry were to do both, concede publicly
but, at the same time, look into every instance of mischief, and
see if in fact the election was fair or fixed.

This would be a no lose situation for him. The booby trap set up
for him would become irrelevant, as he would have done the right
thing for the nation, not putting it into turmoil while its
troops are in battle.

But at the same time, he is still just as free to look into any
voting irregularities as he would have been had he not conceded.
Even better, he could do it without the press going insane and
the nation being kept on tension-creating edge. All of the
lawyers he could have sent to look into things still could be
sent to look into things, and if the election is truly called
into question, he could then, with ample justification so as to
make it legitimate, come out publicly and retract his concession.
It is the prosecutor, also one of Kerry's previous jobs, who
knows well enough to thoroughly prepare and investigate his case
be leveling charges. You may have a real hunch that someone is
responsible for a murder, but until you believe you can win that
case in court, you do not make the allegation.

This is called fighting smart. And the Bushies, in the same way
they failed to plan for the subtleties of doing battle in Iraq,
haven't even caught on yet that this is what is occurring, that
they are, in fact, being outflanked and attacked after being
tricked into looking the other way.

And just in case you don't quite believe John Kerry is on the
case, and instead think he just turned out to be a wimp who
didn't live up to his word, take a look at this letter from his
brother, released privately to his supporters:


CAM KERRY'S LETTER
I am grateful to the many people who have contacted me to express
their deep concern about questions of miscounting, fraud, vote
suppression, and other problems on election day, especially in
Florida and Ohio. Their concern reflects how much people care
about the outcome of this election. I want to you to know we are
not ignoring it. Election protection lawyers are still on the job
in Ohio and Florida and in DC making sure all the votes are
counted accurately. I have been conferring with lawyers involved
and have made them aware of the information and concerns people
have given me. Even if the facts don't provide a basis to change
the outcome, the information will inform the continuing effort to
protect the integrity of our elections. If you have specific
factual information about voting problems that could be helpful
to the lawyers doing their job, please send it to (e-mail removed
for the story) rather than to me. The election protection effort
has been important to me personally, and I am proud of the 17,000
lawyers around the country who helped. It's obvious that we have
a way to go still, but their efforts helped make a difference.
Their work goes on. Thank you, Cam Kerry



Notice that he chose to have his brother, who is not well-known
to the public, sign the letter. As far as the public is
concerned, John Kerry has conceded at that is that.
But now you know that that is not truly the case.
Make no mistake, he will never publicly call the election into
question unless enough fraud turns out to truly challenge the end
result. And so, in effect, he is not at this point contesting
the election. But in reality, he is like the DA who says, "At
this time we are not charging President Bush with anything."
Evidence first. It is the best strategy for him personally, the
best strategy politically, and the best strategy for the nation.
And now stepping in to help is the man who was supposed to be the
spoiler, Ralph Nader. As the Washington Post reports (see
article: Losing by 335,000 in N.H., Nader Demands a Recount),
Nader is using New Hampshire as a staging ground to call the
Diebold machine-recorded electronic votes into question.
Why is he doing it in New Hampshire, which Kerry won? Does this
mean he is going after Kerry?

Not at all. It is tactically brilliant. In New Hampshire, any
candidate can call for a recount as long as he offers to pay for
it. And that cost in this small state is only $2,000 dollars.
So Nader is choosing to challenge the results there, but only to
make the case that, if there turns out to be a problem with the
machines there, the votes must be challenged everywhere.
As the WashPost reports, "We have received reports of
irregularities in the vote reported on the AccuVote Diebold
Machines in comparison to exit polls and trends in voting in New
Hampshire," Nader wrote Secretary of State William M. Gardner.
"These irregularities favor President George W. Bush by 5% to 15%
over what was expected."

So you see clearly he is charging that the machines skewed in
favor of President Bush. New Hampshire was just the easiest,
smartest, and cheapest place to get a first crack at making the
case, and so opening a Pandora's Box that will spread out across
the nation.

So enjoy the non-Moderate Independent media's coverage of
Fallujah and ignoring of the recount. But rest assured that
people are on the case, and that Kerry is taking the fight to
them - in such a smart matter they don't even know what's hitting
them. And remember, Watergate didn't break the week after the
election. No one knew anything was even fishy, but in the end,
the devil go his due.

And on another note, the non-M/I media should be given some
credit. As one Washington Post reporter told me, you can bet
they are looking into all of this. And, as you see with the
above Washington Post story, when they get something concrete
they are going to print.

But it is the new media - the blogs - that are powering this one
as much as the mainstream media.

So rest assured, and feel free to help out in anyway you can. We
are the eyes, ears, and analysts of our nation. Support
Olbermann at MSNBC, and rest assured, Kerry is on the case.
And lest you not realize what exactly is going on, this today
from Olbermann: "With news this morning that the computerized
balloting in North Carolina is so thoroughly messed up that all
state-wide voting may be thrown out and a second election day
scheduled, the story continues."

And, even better, this from a first-hand witness' e-mail being
circulated among Kerry supporters:


Subject: Basic report from Columbus
I worked for 3 days, including Election Day, on the statewide
voter protection hotline run by the Ohio Democratic Party in
Columbus, Ohio. I am writing this because the media is
inexplicably whitewashing what happened in Ohio, and Kerry's
concession was likewise inexplicable.
Hundreds of thousands of people were disenfranchised in Ohio.
People waited on line for as long as 10 hours. It appears to have
only happened in Democratic-leaning precincts, principally (a)
precincts where many African Americans lived, and (b) precincts
near colleges.
I spoke to a young man who got on line at 11:30 am and voted at 7
pm. When he left at 7 pm, the line was about 150 voters longer
than when he'd arrived, which meant those people were going to
wait even longer. In fact they waited for as much as 10 hours,
and their voting was concluded at about 3 am. The reason this
occurred was that they had 1 voting station per 1000 voters,
while the adjacent precinct had 1 voting station per 184. Both
precincts were within the same county, and managed by the same
county board of elections. The difference between them is that
the privileged polling place was in a rural, solidly republican,
area, while the one with long lines was in the college town of
Gambier, OH. Lines of 4 and 5 hours were the order of the day in
many African- American neighborhoods.
Touch screen voting machines in Youngstown OH were registering
"George W. Bush" when people pressed "John F. Kerry" ALL DAY
LONG. This was reported immediately after the polls opened, and
reported over and over again throughout the day, and yet the
bogus machines were inexplicably kept in use THROUGHOUT THE DAY.
Countless other frauds occurred, such as postcards advising
people of incorrect polling places, registered Democrats not
receiving absentee ballots, duly registered young voters being
forced to file provisional ballots even though their names and
signatures appeared in the voting rolls, longtime active voting
registered voters being told they weren't registered, bad faith
challenges by Republican "challengers" in Democratic precincts,
and on and on and on.
I was very proud of the way so many Ohioans fought so valiantly
for their right to vote, and would not be turned away. Many,
however, could not spend the entire day and were afraid of losing
their jobs, due to the severe economic depression hitting Ohio.
I do not understand why Kerry conceded and did not fight to
ensure that all Ohioans would have a chance to vote, and for
their vote to be counted.


If he is an M/I reader, now he will know.