Door Daan de Wit
Niet iedereen is het roer kwijt in de Verenigde Staten. Democraat (nouja, lid van de Democratische Partij) Paul Begala* houdt er duidelijke meningen op na: 'The Bush operation reminds me of North Korea. You have a group of insanely loyal, fiercely committed lunatics, devoting their lives to slavish devotion of a moron whose only claim to power is that his father used to run the country. George W. Bush is Kim Jong Il with better hair.'

Iedereen zit nu te zeuren dat de Amerikanen de huidige situatie zat zijn en het allang mooi vinden dat er nu enige duidelijkheid is omdat Bush lijkt te hebben gewonnen; feit is dat er een hoop is gesjoemeld en dat Bush nu de verkiezingen probeert te stelen door voor elkaar te krijgen dat hele stapels stemmen niet worden geteld. Waar gaat het nou om? Om een of andere door de Republikeinen ingestelde deadline die moet worden gehaald of om het principe dat alle stemmen tellen?

Begala gaat nog even verder: 'As junior retreats to think Great Thoughts under the big skies of Crawford, there has been a stunning generational shift in the Bush camp. Poppy’s [dus Bush Senior] taken over. Exiled are Junior’s geniuses — my friends Karl Rove and Mark McKinnon and Matthew Dowd. Poppy’s pals — Cheney and Baker and Card and Powell — are running things now. You can just hear Jim Baker screaming at Austin: "Just lock that idiot kid up on the ranch somewhere, we’ll tell him what to say and when to say it. Every time he speaks it looks like a damn hostage video Ollie North smuggled out of Tehran, and every time he’s under stress he breaks out in a boil. He lost the election. We’ll deliver him the White House."'
Een goeie opmerking over North, helemaal gezien 'Democratic strategist Paul Begala is the co-host, with Oliver North, of MSNBC’s “Equal Time.”' By the way, Begala heeft het over North in relatie tot Teheran, dus IranContra. In dat verband heeft DeepJournal persoonlijk gesproken met Chip Tatum die vertelde ooit als geheim agent in zijn helicopter North naar coca-plantages in Colombia te hebben gevlogen om in opdracht van president Bush Sr. te inspecteren of het allemaal wel lekker liep met de cocaïne-productie. North zou namelijk een groot afnemer zijn geweest. Route: met vliegtuigladingen de VS binnen en daar vervolgens afzetten om veel geld te verdienen dat deels weer ten goede zou komen aan de Contra's.

Verder in het artikel een aantal staaltjes van misdadige handelingen rond het tellen van de stemmen. Waar blijft Jimmy Carter om net als in bananenrepublieken over de hele wereld toe te zien op het eerlijk tellen van de stemmen?

"There’s a very real chance that a judge will order the counting of the 10,750 votes the machines could not count in Miami-Dade County. Now, it’s entirely possible that Gore won’t garner enough votes from those ballots. I can live with that. I just can’t accept Bush’s rent-a-rioters using thug tactics to keep those votes from being fairly and accurately counted." De rent-a-rioters waar Begala het over heeft, komen ondermeer uit dit opzienbarende artikel van de Wall Street Journal.
[je kunt inloggen op het artikel door deepjournal als login en password te gebruiken]. Gezien, de beelden met als wilde apen schreeuwende Republikeinen? Bonzend op deuren om het stemmen tellen onmogelijk te maken? Amerika op de drempel van 2001, can you believe it? 'GOP Protest in Miami-Dade Is a Well-Organized Effort - Bush Campaign Pays Tab For Aides From Capitol Hill Flown in for Rallies' is de kop boven het artikel in de Wall Street Journal.

'MIAMI -- When outraged Republicans raised a ruckus outside the Miami-Dade County elections office last week, some protesters at the door weren't local citizens. They were Capitol Hill aides on all-expenses paid trips, courtesy of the Bush campaign.
Right up front on television images of the event last Wednesday were Thomas Pyle, an aide to GOP Rep. Tom DeLay, and Michael Murphy, who works for a DeLay fund-raising committee. Doug Heye from California Rep. Richard Pombo's office also was in the fray.
Shortly after the door-kicking, window-banging protest, the Miami-Dade canvassing board made a sharp U-turn, suspending a recount that was expected to help Vice President Al Gore chip away at Texas Gov. George W. Bush's lead. Mr. Gore's inability to secure these votes was a key to Mr. Bush's certification as the Florida winner Sunday night. Miami-Dade canvassing-board members, while denying that the crowd cowed them, decided they couldn't complete the count by Sunday's 5 p.m. deadline without using a room that the protesters complained limited public access.'
'[...] In Washington, several GOP aides say the office of Mr. DeLay, the House Republican whip, took charge of the effort on Capitol Hill, passing on an offer many staffers couldn't refuse: free air fare, accommodations and food in the Sunshine State -- all paid for by the Bush campaign. [...] "Once word leaked out, everybody wanted in," says one GOP operative involved in the effort. Participants estimate that more than 200 staffers signed on, some spending more than a week in South Florida. Many stayed in Hiltons by the beach and received $30 a day for food, as well as an invitation to an exclusive Thanksgiving Day party in Fort Lauderdale. [...]
The camaraderie was on full display at the glitzy Thanksgiving night party featuring free food and libations at the Hyatt on Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale -- "a festive family mood," says one protester. Entertainer Wayne Newton crooned the song "Danke Schoen," until a group of frenzied female fans rushed the stage. The night's highlight was a conference call from Mr. Bush and running mate Dick Cheney, which included joking references by both running mates to the incident in Miami, two staffers in attendance say.
[...]
Bush supporters sometimes outnumbered Gore backers by 10 to one outside the Broward County Courthouse in the Democrat-leaning community. A block to the north, a recreational vehicle festooned with Bush-Cheney signs served as operation central, having recently been transferred from similar duty in Miami.

Not all out-of-state demonstrators came from Washington. Several New York Republicans paid for their own plane tickets, while the Bush-Cheney campaign footed the hotel bill. "They told me to send an invoice for our bills, and I told them we need the check by Sunday night, in case he loses," jokes one of them.

Rick Nelson, a vascular surgeon from Oklahoma City, recalls arriving in Miami and being told by a GOP official that he and several other volunteers were going to become protesters. "Okay, we've never done this before," Mr. Nelson recalls the operative saying. "Anybody know how to put together a protest?"'
 

* 'Democratic strategist Paul Begala is the co-host, with Oliver North, of MSNBC’s "Equal Time." Begala is also the author of "Is Our Children Learning? The Case Against George W. Bush."'