How easy it is to throw stones at others and blithely ignore our own shortcomings.
It is easy when you are Ari Fleischer and you said anything that was on the Bush-Cheney menu for the day. As Fleischer and other neocon allies point fingers at Obama and proclaim that his weaknesses caused the current Iran election vote scandal to materialize, it is necessary to see where the Republican right has stood on democratic electioneering.
This is the same Ari Fleischer who was laughed off his own podium and out of the White House press room after steadfastly declaring that the Bush-Cheney administration did not make decisions based on politics.
A subject that is too tragic to laugh off is how Democrats actually won the last five presidential elections but were not given official credit for two victories. Fraud coupled with political opportunism robbed Democrats of legitimate victories in 2000 and 2004.
How sadly ironic it was for Karl Rove and others of the Republican high command to be proclaiming a dominance for the foreseeable future when an ominous losing streak was then occurring.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush and close ally Secretary of State Katherine Harris shamefully stole potential votes from African American and other minority voters by "scrubbing"- the Florida state voters' list under the pretext of excluding felons from voting in the 2000 presidential election.
Despite this anti-democratic conduct involving stealing votes in reverse, limiting potential voters, courageous Florida Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis sought justice.
When the Florida State Supreme Court ruled that a statewide recount should be held, Lewis applied state law predicated on "voter intent."- Lewis ruled that not only would under votes be counted, where intent had been made clear, but over votes as well.
An over vote problem of major proportions occurred in Duval County, the Jacksonville area, involving first time voters, mainly African Americans.
Due to confusing language about voting for a preferred candidate on "each page"- of the ballot where there was a continuation, this problem existed on such a pronounced level that the entire outcome of the close Florida race could have been altered based on Duval County alone.
Republicans knew that they could not tolerate an honest and honorable judge like Terry Lewis to conduct a recount according to state law and in concert with a ruling of Florida's highest judicial tribunal.
The neocon Federalist Society stalwarts of the U.S. Supreme Court led by Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas prostituted the law and contorted constitutional reality by ruling in a 5-4 decision that candidate George W. Bush had his legal rights impaired by a recount that could have adversely impacted upon him.
It was nothing but fraudulent gibberish and they all knew it. When Scalia had a chance to defend his position in an appearance at Oxford University's Speaker's Union he declined to do so, attempting to kill the discussion through clumsily applied humor.
Now we move on to the 2004 election. Republican kingmakers knew that with Democrats pointing to the fact that Al Gore received more popular votes than Al Gore four years earlier, to pull off another theft it was important to "win"- the popular vote.
When Bush was declared the "winner"- he pointed to the "capital"- he had secured with a 3-point edge of 51-48 percent in the popular vote.
This alleged difference served to minimize pervasive and highly provable vote counting fraud and denial of equal access to Election Day voting facilities for African Americans in the greater Cleveland area. The Ohio fraud was of such a magnitude as to make Florida democracy destroyers like Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris turn green with envy.
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