The Mugging Of Democracy

By Mark Karlin, Editor, Buzzflash at Truthout

Thursday's dedication of the George W. Bush presidential library, NPR headlines an article that details how President "Obama's Bush Library Speech Leaves Iraq And More Unspoken."

Most Americans of both parties have, over the years, appeared to have adopted the attitude that the stolen election of 2000 is something the nation has gotten over. 

But it's hard not to underscore that the George W. Bush presidential library is really a fraud. 

After all, Bush was never elected president. 

On the 10th anniversary of his anointment by the Supreme Court, and particularly by the stay of the Florida state-mandated recount by Antonin Scalia--a long-time buddy of Dick Cheney and rabid right wing partisan.

American voter, you're in for it now...it's gonna be a long and bumpy ride ahead.
 
In 2010, Eric Alterman recounted just some of the machinations that led to an election that was stolen even before the votes were cast (which was done with a number of voter suppression strategies, including the purging of tens of thousands of largely minority voters in Florida done by a firm called ChoicePoint) on the tenth anniversary of the legalized putsch

Banana, anyone?

The coup was openly revealed in Scalia's infamous stay of a state-mandated recount (Bush, by the way, as governor of Texas signed a bill that would have made a recount in Florida automatic if the vote were as close in Texas as it officially was in the Sunshine State) when he stated that a recount "threatens irreparable harm to [Bush] and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election."

In short, Scalia is saying that if Bush lost after a recount it would hurt his reputation as president since the Supreme Court would install him in the White House no matter what the voters decided in Florida

Did you get that feeling, too?

(Remember that Al Gore won the national popular vote by more than 540,000 votes.)

How could we forget?

Recently, I was re-reading one of BuzzFlash's interviews with Kevin Phillips.

Phillips was a high-ranking Republican strategist during the Nixon years, who has since penned scathing books about the GOP abandoning principles and replacing them with the goal of protecting the wealthy.

Oh, you saw that... 

He also was a keen critic of the stolen 2000 election, writing that the Bush family excelled at stealing their way into public office through vote manipulation.

Those darling little scamps! Aren't they a lovable little group?   
   
He pointed to Duval County in Florida that George Herbert Walker Bush lost when he carried the Sunshine State by more than 600,000 votes in 1988. 

But in 2000, his son won Duval County by several thousand votes. 

Isn't that a bit odd to say the least?

Odd? Nah, what's so odd.

There is so much evidence related to the stolen election of 2000, all of which amounts to sophisticated voter theft strategies that would make a banana republic proud.

There you go again. Carmen Miranda's gonna be pissed...if she's still alive...

No, it's not over. 

Bush's presidential library should represent the house of horrors that he brought to this nation as a losing candidate who was put in power by a widespread network, including his brother, the governor of Florida at the time, and his brother's ambitious secretary of state.

You noticed that, too?

Last week according to the Sydney Morning Herald, Bush said that he has no regrets about his presidency:

No regrets? He has no regrets? I'll be right back...I have to smash my head on the fireplace 'til it bleeds profusely.

 Ten years after leading the United States into war with Iraq, and despite leaving office with historically low poll ratings, George W. Bush says he has no regrets about his presidency.

Yeah, we know...he said that already...and my knuckles are raw from biting them...

“I'm comfortable with what I did,”  Bush said, during a rare interview. “I'm comfortable with who I am.”

Breaking a silence that he maintained through the costly war's 10th anniversary, Bush said it was “easy to forget what life was like when the decision was made” to invade.

I forget...why did we invade that hapless, hopeless little country?

However, “nobody likes to be criticized all the time,” he told The Dallas Morning News, his local newspaper in Texas.

We understand, Georgie...nobody wants to be criticized all the time...now put the scissors down...

Thieves rarely have regrets unless they get caught.

It is ironic that President Obama praised his predecessor at the library dedication, when Obama's State Department is claiming that the Venezuelan election to replace Chavez is suspect.

The right-wing coup that put Bush into office wasn't a suspected theft of an election; it was a mugging of democracy in broad daylight.