Georgia: Was the 'Velvet Revolution' a Myth?

Georgia: Was the 'Velvet Revolution' a Myth?
Violence Erupts in Georgia

This is a follow-up story to my blog of December 8th.

Who?
Bush?
Worry?
Bush Needs to Worry

________________________________________

"FLORIDA: H.U.D. SECRETARY RESIGNS Mel Martinez, who has been urged by the White House to run for the Senate in Florida, said he was resigning as secretary of housing and urban development. Mr. Martinez, a Cuban-born former chief executive of Orange County, Fla., has been near the bottom in polls for the Senate seat being vacated by a Democrat, Bob Graham. Bush political strategists have asked him to run, concerned that the candidacy of another Republican, Representative Katherine Harris, Florida's secretary of state during the disputed 2000 presidential voting, may hurt the president." (AP)
________________________________________

The word is out that Bush is afraid. He's worried...with good reason.
A Katherine Harris Senate-campaign in Florida will strike a nasty blow to his chances for 2004 Presidential re-election. Her run might cause a blood-boiling mental regurgitation of Election 2000 and spur all of us 'irrational mouth-frothing' Democrats to actually come out and vote. (As if we've forgotten 2000, anyhow).
It's rumoured that Karl Rove is pushing for HUD's Mel Martinez to run a Senate campaign in Florida to edge Katie out.

Some thanks, eh, Ms. Harris?
You're their sweetheart one day, their dirty scourge the next.

Kate-how she looked to the GOP in 2000:


How she looks to the GOP in 2004:

"Get thee away, o pestilent augury of shame!"

Bush should be worried.
Unless the GOP can get away with another blatant heist of democracy, he's going to lose another Presidential election..and this time he won't get to pretend he won (unless he pretends in front of his mirror back in Crawford).

We the People (and the rest of the world) have our eyes trained on Diebold, all electoral processes, the dire need for fair elections, the partisan Supreme Court, the virtual road blocks created by partisans to prevent citizen participation,

....and the angry red-faced GOP men-mobs with totally non-metrosexual conservative coifs sporting neatly pressed dockers and uniform sweaty white shirts screaming intimidatingly while blocking County canvassing-board doors.



(I can't help it. When I think about the great already-existing powers-that-be behind their machinery, these GOP intimidators reminded me of those nice clean-cut blonde haired blue-eyed Jew-hating men in 1940s-Nazi Germany..or 2000's Italy...only they are liberal-haters).



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is a related article about Florida and National Politics from a hometown 'Treasure-Coast' columnist -Joe Crankshaw:
Florida Democrats this time around ready for the fight

Persepolis

A Graphic Novel You Shouldn't Miss
"Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi




This book reminds me of the old "Classics Illustrated" comics I read as a child.
Educational, entertaining, thought-provoking, socially relevant, simple form.


Remember these?

See samples from PERSEPOLIS at the website (click on the photo).

Robert Kennedy Jr. On NPR's "Fresh Air" Dec 4 2003

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On NPR's "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross

In case you missed the show on December 4, here's your chance to hear it.
Kennedy thinks Bush will be considered the worst environmental president in history and is concerned that Bush will dismantle 30 years of pro-environmental legislation.

Click onto this link to see President Bush's Hat of the day


Why would he wear such a mean old hat? Is it because of this message mysteriously appearing in recent photos of him?

See the new Bush/Cheney 2004 Campaign buttons....
and two photos along the campaign trail with the background logo to go along.

Uhh...Mission Not Quite Accomplished

I can't believe how embarrassingly honest Prez Bush has become in his new style of campaigning.

Look here, too!

Thanks to the Bush Backdrop Generator!

Gore to Endorse Howard Dean, Sources Say



Update: Dec 9th-
Now it can be said: Dean is Gore's choice!

Diplomatic Tensions with Russia Over U.S. Involvement in Georgia Coup
What Awaits the U.S. Beyond this War on Terror?

I've been reading the stories associated with the Georgia coup and frankly, I'm concerned for this reason:
The Bush administration has not been historically adept at diplomatic success.
Allow me to be clearer: They are diplomacy-bunglers.
The world, by and large, is no less than disgusted by the Bush arrogance in matters of international concern.
The Bush administration has, however, been greatly successful at pushing U.S. interests for the cause of the great oil pipeline. (While telling the American people it's all for the cause of "democracy").
"Democracy" actually means the "pipeline" to the President's administration.

Russia is saying that it's becoming clearer, as days pass, that the U.S. played a heavy-hitting role in the Georgian coup.
An article by Jeffrey Donovan from last August in Baku Today Online would support the suspicion.
While I am not at all surprised, I can see where this may be going.

Terror is born when its father, which is the arrogance of western interests, conjoins with the mother, which is Poverty's Voiceless and Powerless Misfortune's children.
The mother of terror, "Powerless Misfortune's" children are not just tramps on the street.
They are often charming, cultured people.
Perhaps not so different from you or me.
What does corruption, greed, and lust for power do to fine and ordinary people?
We weren't supposed to ask those questions after 9-11. The subject seemed taboo.
I think it's high-time we begin a widespread discussion about it.

Now is the time for the most cultured, wise, and compassionate diplomats.

I have lost trust that the Bush administration either has or properly activates well-meaning
diplomatic representatives. General Powell, a decent, loyal and compassionate man in my estimation, has been ill-used.

Will social progress be cast aside for Western gain in the Caucasus region?
When will ordinary Russians and citizens of the Caucasus become terrorists and active
enemies of the American state?

Let's watch as history unfolds before our very eyes.

The Cold War has passed. Russia has become a shadow of the powerful threat she once threateningly
represented to America.

Our leaders tell us that 'Terror' has replaced 'Communism' as the threat to our free existence.

Does anyone, besides me, see that we are creating 'terror' by our great failure as international diplomats?

Some liberals may not willingly give credit to former President Ronald Reagan for any part in the fall of
Communism, but it cannot be said that he was a dangerously radical, arrogant, diplomatic failure.
Ronald Reagan did not create more Communism.

I'm afraid to believe that the Bush administration is creating more terror, yet I must...and I do.
I see it happening in each news story that passes.

What has occurred in Georgia is akin to what George Soros would have desired.
Soros is a man who recently said he would stake his entire fortune if it would ensure a 2004 Bush defeat.
I see this Georgian confluence of interests..Soros and Rumsfeld.. as quite a paradox.
Soros' hope is for social progress.
I cannot trust that the U.S. cares more about social progress than they care about the pipeline.

I wonder if Soros believes what has occurred in Georgia is good, in the long run, for true democracy
in that region. I wonder if his hopes will be dashed. If we elect a new leader in 2004, we may be able to head off tensions and make this a fruitful experience for society as well as capital gain. But right now the Bush administration is at the wheel and I'm greatly concerned. Now is the time for concern as America extends its influence into the Causasus. I recently read an excellent piece by Canadian journalist Mark Ames which caused me to wonder.
In it, McKinnon says:
"....While America considered Milosevic an enemy for years before his ouster, we backed Shevardnadze, dollar-for-voter, more than any leader in the world besides Rabin/Barak/Sharon."

"...Russia still has four military bases in Georgia and control, via proxy, of vast swathes of their territory, not to mention control over Georgia’s energy supplies. Life is not going to be easy for Burdzhanadze and the more popular opposition leader, Harvard-trained Mikhail Saakashvili, who are going to try to move Georgia even more forcefully and rapidly into the West’s orbit. "

"...What’s next? If you take the example of Serbia, then what’s next is this: in about six to nine months, vast disappointment and disillusionment with the Velvet Revolution will set in. Burdzhanadze will be too weak to control the brutal politics, and Saakashvili, a nationalist who at one time was compared to Zhirinovsky (not apt, but he’s definitely a populist), will find that the struggle to maintain and expand his powers will take up all of his energies and enmesh him into all the ugly tactics used by his predecessors: corruption, corruption and more corruption. "

"....America, will focus exclusively on securing the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline. All aid, all choices of whom to support, will rest on that oil pipeline, even if it means propping up another round of corruption and increasingly unpopular leaders. And the Russians will do all they can to make the Americans’ cronies’ job as difficult as possible."

"...In the end, as always, it will be the Georgian people—the most charming, proud, cultured people in Europe, in my opinion—who lose out. "

When the proud, charming, cultured people are the ones who "lose out" through greed and power-grab,
what is left to win?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Additional Readings:

Mark Ames' "Exile" Article About James Baker's Odd Diplomatic Role in the Geogia Coup

A new U.S. Military Mission to Georgia?

Who's Who in the Georgia Coup

Q & A: The Georgia Coup

Greg Palast: Baker Takes the Loaf-President's Business Partner Slices Up Iraq

Last May, it seemed that we were headed toward "victory" in Iraq and this is how Stratfor.com viewed Russia in
the perspective of Caucasus politics and the E.U. ..the potential superpower-to-be.
Consider how that "victory" has turned to sorrowful failure for the U.S. to date...along with our great slip in international credibility and respect.

Russia and U.S. spar in Allah's Mountains


"....as the US continues to assimilate worldwide humanitarian endeavors to its imperial ambitions, the heavy hitters of the NGO establishment are preening for another round of mediagenic self-celebration at the upcoming World Social Forum. Suggested new slogan: "Another Coup is Possible."

"The United States has followed its successful regime change in the strategic Caucasian nation of Georgia with a series of moves aimed at pressing its advantage over its major rival in the region, Russia."


Arms made in Caucasus feared sold to terrorists

The issue of Abkhazia-think about the need for U.S. diplomacy with Russia and Turkey.....then think about Iraq and its Turkey-related diplomatic implications.
Regarding Abkhazia, now is the time for the greatest diplomatic care.
Donald Rumsfeld is no diplomat.
James Baker is an influential Texas money-man whose interests are transparent.
The U.S. Supreme Court may have been impressed with him in Florida 2000, but the Middle-East may
not be quite as convinced. Baker will be a strong-arm...not a diplomat.
Brenda Shaffer of Harvard University's Caspian Studies Program, while saying it's right for Rumsfled to attend to the Caucasus, suggests that Washington's best strategy for pursuing its interests would be to undertake "joint, vigorous action with Russia to resolve conflicts that afflict the region." (Note: "Joint and vigorous does not mean causing more tensions with Russia).
Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a vicious war over Nagorno-Karabakh and a post-independence civil war in Georgia led to the "de facto secession" of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
These conflicts deserve attention, as a renewal of violence would hinder economic and social progress
throughout the Caucasus.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Note: The U.S. is not the only stock market which will benefit greatly from the new, improved Georgia.

Example:

Sumitomo Corp. has recently won a contract to produce steel pipe for the natural gas pipeline that will connect Azerbaijan and Turkey in a deal estimated to be worth just under 20 billion yen (US$185 million). The order for the pipe was placed by South Caucasus Pipeline Co., which constructs and operates pipelines and consists of firms such as BP and the government-owned State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan. This contract would be the biggest deal won by a Japanese company for the construction of steel pipe in the Commonwealth of Independent States region.

The U.S. markets are showing renewed investor confidence this week--and if you don't see the Georgia-connection, I implore you to think carefully about it.

My question...will our renewed investor-confidence eventually cause us to be riding over the rights
of Georgian citizens?
Do we care, as long as our richest get fatter?

Our President has shown, through his economic and foreign policies, that his chosen route to success and "freedom" is
enriching the richest among us. That's no assumption on my part..the Administration has made no secret of it.

When do we start thinking about the moral implications for our own countrymen as well as the people of the rest of this world? When will we finally see the results of our nation's "ethical policy" decisions and their eventual ties to the birth of terror?

Diplomats: Let's talk.

One More Seat at the Table

One More Seat at the Table
By Parag Khanna
Published: NY Times, December 6, 2003

I found this to be one of the best appeals to the United States..an appeal to relinquish its Security Council veto power in favor of majority voting. In Khanna's words, "No country has more frequently exercised its veto right, while simultaneously denouncing other nations' use of it."
He calls for a stronger United Nations, which can extend (and repair tarnished) American influence while also making unilateral action by the United States unnecessary in the future.

Will anyone listen?

Kristof Column is Way off the Mark

Nicholas Kristof is either a GOP mole or secretly endorses another Dem Candidate


Re: There They Go Again
By Nicholas D. Kristof

Wow.
What an intellectually disappointing column by Kristof.
My personal view is that, if he doesn't have a personal agenda, then he's very much out of touch with
the pulse of politics of the moment.

He says: "I agree with Mr. Dean on many issues, and I admire his willingness to oppose our Iraq invasion from the beginning. But shiny-eyed teenagers who distribute leaflets for him in places like Yamhill County are going to get very cold stares — and end up heartbroken.."

I'd remind Mr. Kristof that there are hundreds of thousands of shiny-eyed folks of all ages out here working for Governor Dean.
When you think about it, there were some shiny-eyed folks in 1776 who faced the risk of a lot more than
heartbreak. (Can you spell prison and death?)
It worked out well for them. And it was totally unexpected, wasn't it?

I can almost hear Kristof back in 1776.."..those silly, shiny-eyed fools think they can beat the British..."
Someone nudge old Nick and remind him that this is the new bloodless revolution.
And we will win..with Howard Dean as our chosen leader.

Kristof is very condescending and downright insulting to middle Americans in this column:

"...I seriously doubt that anybody who publicly uses the word "contretemps" can ever be elected president...You get the feeling that if Mr. Dean and Mr. Bush were stuck together in a small Missouri town, Mr. Dean would lecture farmers about Thomas Paine's writings, while Mr. Bush would have the cafe crowd in stitches by doing impersonations of Mr. Dean..."

First, he makes Bush sound absolutely retarded in this scenario. Then he makes middle-Americans sound like a
bunch of ignorant rednecks who would never understand or care about principles, but would rather laugh at a monkeyboy's antics. I give middle America far more credit. I truly have faith that all Americans are concerned about the health and welfare of their own communities and the health of the democracy that allows their participation in the political process.


Kristof says: "...Mr. Dean is smart, but he knows it. America's heartland oozes suspicion of Eastern elitists, and Mr. Dean's cockiness would exacerbate that suspicion."

I'm not sure that middle America is any different than the South in the "suspicion of elitists", but I DO know that Howard Dean has taken the Democratic lead in South Carolina according to the most recent Zogby poll.
This contradicts Kristof's stated belief.

What do you think?
Is Kristof a one-man "stop-Dean-team"?

Just which one of those other nine Democrats do you figure is on his secret agenda?

U.S. Air Strike Apparently Kills Nine Children

This sounds too much like something that would happen in the Gaza strip


When is the chance of killing one "known-terrorist" worth the lives of nine innocent children?

Was the "isolated, rural site" we bombed a family home?

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A U.S. air strike apparently killed nine children as well as the suspected militant who was targeted on Saturday in eastern Afghanistan, according to the U.S. military.

Army Readiness Damaged: Donald Rumsfeld Needs to Step Down

Washington Post: Army Will Face Dip in Readiness
This blog thinks Donald Rumsfeld Needs to Step Down

4 Divisions Need to Regroup After Iraq
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 6, 2003; Page A01

From the article

"....Four Army divisions -- 40 percent of the active-duty force -- will not be fully combat-ready for up to six months next year, leaving the nation with relatively few ready troops in the event of a major conflict in North Korea or elsewhere, a senior Army official said yesterday."

"...Retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, a former division commander and staunch advocate of more Army forces, said four to five divisions below the C-1 rating "means literally half the Army is broken and not ready to fight."

Only two Army active-duty divisions will be available to fight in other parts of the world.
Extreme weather in Iraq and the unprecedented magnitude of the planned troop rotation have contributed to division-
"re-setting" slowdowns. Once divisions return from Iraq, Army readiness will be at its lowest point since the end of the Gulf War. Since then, Army officials have tried to keep divisions at the highest, (C-1) readiness level.
Ironically, President Bush had been known to sharply criticize the Clinton administration during the 2000 Presidential campaign for allowing two Army divisions to fall to the lowest readiness category in the late 90s because of peacekeeping obligations in the Balkans. Has Bush set a political trap for himself? Will he have Donald Rumsfeld to thank?
Should Donald Rumsfeld be fired, as suggested many times in the recent past, by the likes of Democratic candidate Howard Dean and so many American newspaper-editorials?
Will Capitol Hill be pushing for an increase in Army troops (as Senator John McCain has been saying for a while now?)

"....The article says "members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that they, along with Rumsfeld's staff, are still trying to determine whether the requirement for Iraq, which now stands at 130,000 soldiers, is a "spike" that will soon come down, or an ongoing commitment.
If it is a spike, they said, increasing the size of the Army may not be necessary..."

This tiring hedging, hemming, and hawing is nothing more than evidence of further misleading and lying
by the Bush administration.
We will need to be in Iraq for many years if our mission is to be accomplished. We'll need far more troops if that mission is proven worth our while and especially if we fail to get further international respect and cooperation.

The Bush administration can't seem to adequately support our troops because of their own worries about Bush's re-election. If these political election-related worries cause President Bush to continue to mislead and/or lie to his own people at the expense of those precious troops, I would not only call him a poor leader. I would call him ruthlessly and negligently anti-American.

Look, I'm just one citizen sitting here able to foresee a tremendously dismal and dangerous National Secuity future for our nation with the way Rumsfeld has handled his Secretary of Defense duties.
It's time for our Representatives and the press to wake up (as the Post has done in this instance) and keep Americans informed of the danger we face because of horridly irresponsible Defense Department decisions.
Ask yourself:
If your son or daughter should be called to duty, would you trust these shady, misleading, irresponsible characters
in the Bush administration with your children's lives?
If you cannot answer with a resounding YES, then it's time to let your Representatives know that you think Rumsfeld should go. Our troops need your good and true support now more than EVER.

Jesse Gotham at the Gotham City 13 blog

League of Liberals Saturday Spotlight:
From the Pages of Jesse Gotham at Gotham City 13



credit: Gotham City 13

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Common Sense for a New Century

addressed to the Citizens of America by

Gov. Howard Dean, M.D.

December 2003

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”
Thomas Paine

“Are the special privilege boys going to run the country, or are the people going to run it?”
Harry Truman

“Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.”
Thomas Jefferson

“Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Let each person do his or her part. If one citizen is unwilling to participate, all of us are going to suffer. For the American idea, though it is shared by all of us, is realized in each one of us.”
Barbara Jordan

“The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
Thomas Paine

Poll shows Dean edging past
Edwards in S.C.

UTICA, N.Y., Dec. 5 — Howard Dean's presidential campaign
continues to gain steam, with the former Vermont governor moving to
the head of the pack in South Carolina's Democratic race, according
to a poll released Friday. link

~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Talking Points Memo:

"...I had lunch today with someone who is not a politician but a fairly prominent Washington Democrat -- certainly not someone from the party's liberal wing. And in the course of answering a question, I said "If it [i.e. the nominee] ends up being Dean ..." At which point, with the rest of my sentence still on deck down in my throat, my friend shot back : "It's Dean."

It was effortless. He wasn't happy or sad about it. He wasn't trying to convince me -- more like letting me in
on something I apparently wasn't aware of yet...."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Clinton blasts Bush for trying to 'undo New Deal'

"This administration is in danger of being the first in American history to leave our nation
worse off than when they found it."

Senator Hillary Clinton

~~~~~~~~~

Salon.com: Is Dean Stoppable?

"...if Dean knocks them out clean after the first two rounds, it's going to be very hard for anyone to stop him at that point, because there will be two big nights with balloons and everyone rallying to the front-runner..."

~~~~~~~~~
Miserable Failure? Google Trick Says It's Bush

Google-bombing: the latest craze!

~~~~~~~~~

Jimmy Breslin:
"Not only will Dean win the nomination but he will take over the Democratic Party, or whatever there is of it."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stem-Cell Research:
Bush's logical incoherence betrays moral insincerity in favor of pure political gain

Michael Kinsley asks if this pandering moral fakery, in light of the lives that are waiting to be saved, is good enough reason for some to dislike him personally.

From the article:

"....Bush cannot possibly believe that embryos are full human beings, or he would surely oppose modern fertility procedures that create and destroy many embryos for each baby they bring into the world...You cannot logically outlaw the one and praise the other. And surely logical coherence is a measure of moral sincerity..."


"If the president is not a complete moron—and he probably is not—he is a hardened cynic....."
*hmm..we just don't know for sure, do we?*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I tried helping a rookie blogger this week. An act of reaching out to show we libs aren't all that bad.

~~~~~~~~~~~~


In this Sunday's NY Times Magazine:
The Dean Connection
By Samantha M. Shapiro
Published: December 7, 2003

"Teachout says she has been wanting to do something like this since March. ''When I was falling in love with our grass roots,'' she says, ''I thought, If I get fired, I am going to go on the road and meet all of them. Once the idea occurs to you, how can you resist?'' Teachout says she would pore over pictures that people posted on the Web from Dean meet-ups, just ''to get a sense of the characters involved.''

I ask her if the people she hopes to meet on her trip are her friends.

'' 'Friend' is an odd word,'' she says slowly. ''I mean, these are the people who populate my imagination.''

Howard Dean Meet-Up
Wednesday, December 3, 2003
Syracuse, N.Y.


from a photo by V. L. Trojnor

I'm there in the back...under the bright turquoise highlighting.
We have a great group of Howard Dean supporters in Syracuse.
Nice venue--the Spaghetti Warehouse in Syracuse.

Talkin' 'Bout Chad and Me

Talkin' 'Bout Chad and Me


Chad of the dogtulosba,ink. blog and I have had an interesting discussion this past 24 hours about an error I made in classifying President Bush's garment as a "grey Army bomber". Turns out it's actually a "workout jacket".

It turned out to be a discussion about more than a fashion-lesson, though.

Although I learned the basic difference between a bomber-style and a workout- style jacket (along with the meaning of a term that's new to me.."asshat"), my one regret is that Chad seems to want to persist in stripping away my claim to intelligence and responsible research because I did not know the fashion-lingo.

I would implore and invite him any any other bloggers, regardless of political ideology, to come on in and take a look around this blog.

I wasn't voted one of the best (lesser-known) political blogs by E-The-People for having nothing of substance for my readers.

So, back to Chad..and me..

You know, I think Chad and I might yet actually become adversarial yet blog-collegial friends.

OF FAKE TURKEYS AND THE POMP OF DECORATIVE PROP

OF FAKE TURKEYS AND THE POMP OF DECORATIVE PROP:

ONLY ONE OF THE TURKEYS IN THIS PHOTO IS REAL




The other's just for decoration.

Molly Ivins Endorses Howard Dean

Molly Ivins Endorses Howard Dean



"I'm for Howard Dean -- because he's going to win."

Paul Krugman Under Fire From Right-Wing Attack Squad Over Exposing Faulty Voting Machines

Paul Krugman Under Fire From Right-Wing Attack Squad Over Exposing Faulty Voting Machines



Paul Krugman at Syracuse University Nov. 20, 2003
photo by Vicki L. Trojnor
see related story


The fearfully guilty in right-wing journalism are running wild...fangs fully exposed..ready
to cover their masters' filthy tracks; tepid drool dripping from snorting angry snouts.

In the National Review, the lame-excuse-machine Donald Luskintakes over where the 3rd-grade-level name-caller Alex Beam recently left off. They are becoming the tag-team of shame.

I know Paul Krugman MUST be doing something right to have these attack-dogs at his throat (or should I say his writing hand) 24/7.

Bless you, Professor Krugman. When they (let's call them 'Beam') call you "crackers" and insinuate that you have a "personality disorder", you just know you are getting to the exposure-core of their hoped-for deceit.

When another journalist (let's call him 'Luskin') refers to the other cad's debasement of Krugman's very honor and uses it to support a new attack upon him.....well....Professor Krugman most definitely has "gotten to them".

(It's good for Al Beam and Donald Luskin that today's dreadful cads who attack a gentleman's honor are
no longer challenged to the dueling field. Makes you almost long for the old days, though).

So...here we have Beam, then Luskin....
'ad hominem flesh-rip' meets 'piss-warm excuse and blustering blizzards of blurred reason'.
Some tag team.

Look at Luskin's utterly-pitiful excuse-making:

From the National Review article: ----
"..Krugman just can't resist reminding us that Republican "Orrin Hatch...recently announced that one of his aides had improperly accessed sensitive Democratic computer files that were leaked to the press. Krugman fails to mention, however, exactly what those leaked "sensitive Democratic computer files" contained. It turns out they were horrifically embarrassing staff memoranda revealing the hand-in-glove strategic partnership between Democratic senators and various lobbying organizations dedicated to blocking President Bush's judicial nominees (according to one memo, "most of Bush's nominees are nazis")...."

A theft justified what the stolen item contained?
Oh, I don’t think that would fly in any American court of law.
It was a theft…
Luskin justifies theft.


From the National Review article:----
"And according to yesterday's Wall Street Journal, there wasn't even anything "improper" about the aide's access to the files. They were all just sitting on a shared server set up by Democratic senator Pat Leahy's IT staff — a server, it seems, just like the one Diebold used."


Luskin again justifies theft by attempting to rationalize it away.
This, to me, is indicative of a journalist with greatly- compromised integrity.


From the National Review article:----
"... he brings up the infamous 2000 Florida presidential election — that wellspring of so many beloved liberal myths — citing the "'felon purge' that inappropriately prevented many citizens from voting in the 2000 presidential election." But according to Peter Kirsanow, a member of the US Commission on Civil Rights who wrote a piece on the subject..."

Luskin totally insults (and alienates) the majority of Americans who voted in Election 2000 by
categorizing a genuine occurrence as a “myth”---and a “liberal myth” to boot.
There are far more Centrist Americans than there are those on the far left.
In essence, it appears that Luskin is merely preaching to his choir.
I notice that the only “evidence” Luskin presents in this instance is from Peter Kirsanow, the
partisan shill who was forced upon the Civil Rights Commission with a lawsuit brought by the Bush
administration and their interests.




Speaking of preaching to the choir, even the choir loft was full when Professor Krugman spoke at S.U. in November. The numbers of interested and concerned Americans are growing.
photo by Vicki L. Trojnor

From the National Review article:-----
"....Krugman continues by asserting that "An analysis of Diebold software by researchers at Johns Hopkins and Rice Universities found it both unreliable and subject to abuse." Krugman fails to mention that Avi Rubin, the computer scientist who led the Johns Hopkins analysis team, has confessed that he held stock options in VoteHere Inc., a Diebold competitor, and was a member of VoteHere's advisory board...."

There goes Luskin again - attacking the honor of yet another gentleman.
When all else fails, ATTACK!
Would we expect that a person who knew nothing about voting mechanisms to be APT to serve on a
voting-mechanism ANALYSIS team?

HELLO?

Did Luskin not mention Avi Rubin is a computer scientist?

Luskin is impugning someone’s honor again.
Good thing the art of the duel is passé.



From the National Review article:----
QUOTE FROM KRUGMAN:
"Early this year Bev Harris, who is writing a book on voting machines, found Diebold software — which the company refuses to make available for public inspection, on the grounds that it's proprietary — on an unprotected server, where anyone could download it."

Luskin says: "My investigations confirm that a Diebold server was indeed unprotected for a period..."


Look, Mr. Luskin - - if it happened, then it happened. Yes?

Mr. Luskin feels the need to attack Paul Krugman for ever having revealed the quirks in the system.
Ergo, Luskin is seemingly afraid for you to know that these machines are fallible and susceptible to fraudulent tampering.
Moreover, Luskin seems to want you to FORGET that human nature can cause great temptation when hominids lust for power.
Apparently, It’s worth a vicious attack upon a fellow journalist and a gentleman to cover the paymaster’s tracks.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOTE: Bev Harris gives a great interview to Buzzflash
about the reality-potential of the most fraudulent election-theft to ever be orcestrated....yes...even more fraudulent than 2000.