ELECTION 2008, BASIL AND THE ILLUSIONATI or The Strangest Editorial You Have Ever Read
Jonas Holmes
February 08, 2008
Recently an email from Howard Dean arrived in my inbox. It was very poignant and relative. It mentioned that John McCain was going to be the obvious Republican candidate for POTUS. Bearing that in mind it says, we astute Democrats, should be aware that the Republicans are already preparing smear campaigns. Fortunately, or unfortunately; I claim no party affiliation. That; I'm sure, is why there is so much junk mail from every political party in my inbox.
Dean does have a point when it comes to overturning Roe vs Wade. In 2008 people are still talking about whether women have the right to choose. Normally, I would say that is amazing but, based on the last two terms that is par for the course. Oh my, please don't get me started on the course. Stay the course. Hold the course. Mission Accomplished. Weapons of Mass Destruction. To top it all off; do American's have the first world leader ever to get a black eye from...choking on a pretzel? Excuse me for the divergence but, when I hear the word course, well, you know.
That is precisely why this whole election has been about change. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. I don't know. Can we? I mean, was George really calling the shots? We can't call him an idiot and still hold him responsible for the tragic course America has been on. There's that coarse course again. Maybe McCain is the right candidate. After all; he got served a full course smear buffet in S. Carolina by the Rove machine a few years ago. Did he forgive and forget? My point is, isn't the best voting tactic to get the opposite of the current administration? Maybe then, Hillary is the best candidate.
Surely Senator Clinton has not forgotten the Kenneth Star lynching. In retrospect, that whole investigation is amazing in light of Scooter, Abramoff, Gonzalez, Rove and god knows; I don't have enough paper because the list is endless. It is obvious that the evangelical panderers forgot some of Jesus' commandments. I actually feel sorry for the majority of good Christians; they didn't realize they were supporting a wolf in sheep's clothing. Well, I mean, they didn't realize until some of their children started catching hot lead in the desert sand. Suddenly, that cowboy hat and chainsaw aren't so endearing.
Speaking of Crawford, whatever happened to Cindy Sheehan? Is she still alive? Poor lady, you gotta' love her. She got the wake up call of a lifetime. Then; the poor girl actually thought she could do something about it. Protest. Democracy! Speak Out! No, no Cindy; I am sorry the game doesn't work that way. Anyway, someone zip me an email and let me know how Cindy is doing? One day we will all be Cindy Sheehan's if we aren't too scared. Either that or we will hide meekly behind our desks soaking in fear. Or perhaps, we will land somewhere in the middle launching editorial missiles when the men in suits piss us off.
The fear is rampant; I heard John Stewart commenting to Senator Obama about how people loved the things he said but no one thought they were allowed to say it. Now, that is a powerful fear. No one has to tell you the rules; just soak in so much fear and self loathing (thanks Hunter) that you decimate your own soul. Sounds like a grand life. Thanks for the invitation to Earth. LOL! It is tangible, though. Ask any journalist, in fact ask yourself. When was the last time you heard anything about Afghanistan on the news. When talking heads like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are supposed to represent sanity then please, count me among the officially insane. Oh that's right; I forgot about Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a faggot. I mean really, who designated these people to be bastions of righteousness. They are some of the loudest, most obnoxious, rudest human beings on the planet. Yet, they are supposed to be some sort of reputable and respectable purveyors of opinions and news. As loud and obnoxious as they may be, someone is paying good money for them to stay that way. Good God, the Apocalypse is upon us.
I caught my self speaking to a successful businessman who happens to loathe the Republican agenda, so I asked him about the Democrats. All he had to say about them was that they were blank. Blank happened to be a slang word used to describe a private part of the female anatomy. The word in this particular usage was referring to the Democrats lack of courage or to use a male part of the anatomy, balls. Interestingly enough, that put it all into perspective for me. Sure, the Republicans were like Darth Vader but at least they had some balls. The Democrats on the other hand were more like a dismembered C3PO. They sounded really intelligent and could speak well but; they had been neutered.
With all the mud rolling Republicans have been doing this term; the Democrats have a greater opportunity than ever before to guarantee an election victory. If you read Security or Strategy: Either Way, Bush Must Go. You will see a well researched quote from Mr. David Swanson, another American Chronicle contributor. It is as follows, "In each of the nine cases in the past when one party has raised impeachment, that party has benefited in the next elections. In other cases when a party has failed to press for impeachment when the grounds for it were widely known, that party has suffered. (Remember Iran Contra?)" When I read that fact; I was literally astounded. No kidding, I thought to myself. The Democrats actually have a way to lock down a victory and hit a homerun. I mean; it makes as much sense as anything coming out of Bill O'Reilly's mouth. It reminded me of one of those sports statistics. No baseball team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a best of seven series. Most of the times this is true and the Republicans are not your 2004 Red Sox. If they ever had a curse it wasn't losing; unless we are talking about wars.
We got a couple of war things going on now, don't we. There is that Taleban thing and we got the Iraq thing. Is the Plan for A New American Century working out? I am really not sure but I think the authors and defenders of it known as the O.S.P., Office of Special Plans, readily denounced Bush and the Iraq invasion roughly a year ago. I guess the good part is that it has been quiet in Asia. China, North Korea and Russia have been quiet. At least they aren't supplying the enemy this time. Right? Wait a minute, I forgot, who is the enemy? Terror is the enemy. Or is it Terra? I have to check with Al Gore.
What good has come out of these wars? I heard the surge was successful. Are we talking about Haiti/Panama successful or are we talking "Rolling Thunder" successful? I guess there has been some good for some guys. Some guys got paid and paid well but America didn't get paid. Then again was it ever really about America in the first place. Now we are a hated and loathed by every single country in the world. So much so that ...well; I'll get to that in a minute.
I wrote a couple of papers about this whole mess in 2003. I have to review them just to figure what is going on. That's right, it was my first blog on the OSIIS, the Open Source Internet Intelligence Service. It was at the bottom of the page under the quotes by Franklin, Gandhi, Plato, Orwell and Lincoln. Well, not right after, because there was also a story by James Risen called, State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration. After all of that stuff is the big story. It was a follow up to my original paper titled, The Euro-Asian Alliance: Shifts in the Global Balance of Power.
The premise of that paper, to put it in laymen's terms is that; the U.S. was pulling a huge bogey by going into Iraq, for a neophyte in 2003 that wasn't a bad premise. After all, I outguessed a bunch of Congressman and Senators. Why was it such a huge bogey? Primarily because every other country in the world had cut business deals for a piece of that black gold laying under the Iraqi sand. Other countries includes; France, Germany, Russia, China and many more. So sure, we need long term oil resource security. If I want to keep want to keep playing on my Lenovo T43 while I sip Kona Coffe and smoke American Spirits we definitely gotta' have some of that oil. That is a fact but, the way we went about getting it was like a WWF wrestler crashing a Board of Directors meeting. Not to mention that by late 2006 America had burned roughly five billion gallons of oil fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, like the wrestler, America had its way with the Board. My premise was that the Board would meet again and they would figure out how to get rid of that wrestler. That premise manifested the second paper, the one at the bottom of my first OSIIS blog. It was originally titled, G.U.T.R.U.S.H., Globally United Terror Response to United States Hegemony.
The premise is as it sounds. Potentially, the rest of the world would tire of our unilateral actions and unite to destroy us. Covert financing of the opposition in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would provide them the opportunity to do so. Well, as you might guess, these papers drew a lot of attention and not the kind anyone wanted. Perhaps even moreso, because they came from some guy who had "dropped out" of society. Not only that; this dropout was living in woods so remote that there was no electricity or water. What I did have though was a good Honda generator, a giant catchment tank, a cute chick and plenty of basil plants to keep me busy. I mean really, what else does a man need in life? So, a paper like that coming from me was definitely a surprise.
Anyhoo, at first I thought all the broo-haha was because I had maybe, accidentally, given some enemies/terrorists some ideas. But no, that couldn't be it. The Chinese and the Russians financed North Vietnam throughout the entire Vietnam War. Not only that they supplied them by land and by sea through North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. America lost that war and the South Vietnamese lost Saigon. Unlike our current administration the Russians and Chinese aren't idiots. They put the pieces to the puzzle before so they could obviously do it again. Then I thought maybe, its because "terrorists" could use these ideas. I realized that couldn't be it because the terrorists, specifically Al Qaeda, was organized and financed by the United States to help them beat the Russians. So that was old hat. Finally, I figured out what it was. Someone had decided that they were going to have their war and in 2003 they didn't want anyone ruining it, especially some Basil eating idiot whose favorite past time was playing NBA Live and All Madden Football.
The great thing about the whole scenario is that now I look like a prophet. Jonas, my name, actually was a prophet. Perhaps, it is time to give my Ninevah speech. Aww, nah, no need for a speech. Just read those two papers. Paper #1, Part 1 has already been acted out. Paper#2, Part #2 is in progress. Oh and one more thing. It is a bit childish but, "Nnyah, nnyah, nnyah, nnyah, nnyah; I told you so." Pardon the regression but its the least I could do. After this incredibly long read, at least for the President, you may be asking yourself what does all of this have to do with the election. The connection is that from top to bottom it is all politics. War and the 2008 election all come down to politics. Not only is it politics but it is Presidential, Administration and Party politics.
Politics, politics, politics; how do we love thee? It has been so exciting to watch the political season unravel. The rough and tumble debates mixed with heavy post-holiday campaigning are making for finale more exciting then the Super Bowl game. Will Barack Obama be America's first black President? Or, will Hillary Clinton be America's first lady president? Is either one possible? Is America reaching for a new political frontier?
Is Barack Obama playing the race card? Did Hillary disrespect Martin Luther King? Was Bill Clinton really the first black President? It is all such high drama. I can barely contain myself. Has politics ever been so polarizing and nuanced at the same time.
What about the Republicans. What is happening with them? There was the sexy Mormon, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, Mr. 9/11. Don't forget Ron Paul, making the Constitution and states rights an issue; who does that anymore? What a coterie we have this year. Speaking of politicians, whatever happened to Wesley Clarke? It all really is too much, at least for my feeble mind. So, to make things easier; I have narrowed down my political desires into one simple request. That is as follows.
When it comes down to the 2008 election, may the powers that be, please; feed me my illusion well done with extra dressing. If there is some vast right wing conspiracy, as Hillary Clinton once claimed; then they are not doing a very good job. With all the divisive hub bub about race going on in the Democratic Party there is little need for Neocon subterfuge. So please; I humbly ask the election marionetteers, make the 2008 election palatable enough for the subtley acuitous. I mean, if there is an Illusionati, they really aren't doing a very good job. Elect, pick, choose a President. However it is done. Just make it look good this time. Dress it up a little bit. I don't care who the next President is. According to millions of human beings; it couldn't get any worse then it already is. So, that is my wish for 2008. Let anyone be President; I don't care. But please, oh please; lets put on a good show. The last two elections were so horridly disturbing to my psyche.
Taking a reflective look at the 2004 election, simply put, it was a mess. Only one president, John F. Kennedy, has ever won the presidency without capturing Ohio (1). According to Rolling Stone magazine, the statistical variance between the exit poll and the certified vote count in one Ohio precinct had just under a one in three billion chance of occurring (2 ). Talk about beating the odds. The National Election Data Archive (3) that did the analysis of Ohio exit polls and voting said that the "2004 Ohio Precinct-level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount"(4). Fortunately, the integrity of our elected officials shined forth at that time like a beacon of...well, like a match stick and a paper one at that.
Needing just one Senate vote to object to the election, Senator Barbara Boxer stepped forward. And... only Senator Boxer stepped forward That is not a criticism of the Senate. In fact, that is a 100% improvement in the number of Senators that stepped forward to protest the 2000 election. Kudos. Of course, the glorious Tom Delay, whose ideas the Justice Department labeled as "whacko"
(5.), derided Senator Boxer as being from the "X-Files Wing" of the Democratic Party (6). That X-Files wing was obviously underfunded as Senator Boxer and her objection were rejected in a 1-74 Senate vote.
Speaking of 2000, that was the birth of this election mess and my entree to perennial voting day queasiness. The debacle in Florida gave a new meaning to the word "chad". We had dimpled chads, hanging chads and pregnant chads. Prrraayg-gah-nant chads! I've seen it all. Once again those crazy exit polls were misbehavin'. This caused a premature invocation by the media of Al Gore as the winner. Fortunately, they retracted that statement quickly which restored my faith in there information management systems. Then there was some insanity about Volusia County, and a Hursti Hack (7), wrapped in a Socialist Revolution. Louis Farrakhan was proved wrong as Blacks and Jews united in Palm Beach to vote for Pat Buchanan. These were the best of times. These were the worst of times. Further contributing to the ugliness, was the vehemence with which Al Gore shut down the Democratic representatives protesting that whole Florida mess ( 8).
No one wants to dredge up the past. The best way to prevent that from happening is by not repeating it. So my suggestion is that all the parties come to an agreement. Whoever gets the press to say they won first is the winner. That way we can avoid all the media inspired confusion and mental whiplash. Whatever happens, please; let there be no more failed protests. It is depressing enough to have to watch a protest. It is worse having to watch two failed protests in a row. I suggest that if there is going to be a protest, then both parties should agree to disagree. Have the protest. Let the protest be successful and move on.
My final plea is to those Grand Master conspirators they call the Illusionati. Get it together for 2008, man. You guys are supposed to be controlling the entire world. I like my conspiracies wrapped tightly like Japanese origami. Even if it can't be that ornate; can we at least get some McDonald's-like consistency. I want my conspiracies to be fast, cheap and ready to eat. I am still having a hard time digesting either of those last two Presidential elections.
ps. Does anyone have work for an out of work writer? I have way too much time on my hands. :)
Dean does have a point when it comes to overturning Roe vs Wade. In 2008 people are still talking about whether women have the right to choose. Normally, I would say that is amazing but, based on the last two terms that is par for the course. Oh my, please don't get me started on the course. Stay the course. Hold the course. Mission Accomplished. Weapons of Mass Destruction. To top it all off; do American's have the first world leader ever to get a black eye from...choking on a pretzel? Excuse me for the divergence but, when I hear the word course, well, you know.
That is precisely why this whole election has been about change. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. I don't know. Can we? I mean, was George really calling the shots? We can't call him an idiot and still hold him responsible for the tragic course America has been on. There's that coarse course again. Maybe McCain is the right candidate. After all; he got served a full course smear buffet in S. Carolina by the Rove machine a few years ago. Did he forgive and forget? My point is, isn't the best voting tactic to get the opposite of the current administration? Maybe then, Hillary is the best candidate.
Surely Senator Clinton has not forgotten the Kenneth Star lynching. In retrospect, that whole investigation is amazing in light of Scooter, Abramoff, Gonzalez, Rove and god knows; I don't have enough paper because the list is endless. It is obvious that the evangelical panderers forgot some of Jesus' commandments. I actually feel sorry for the majority of good Christians; they didn't realize they were supporting a wolf in sheep's clothing. Well, I mean, they didn't realize until some of their children started catching hot lead in the desert sand. Suddenly, that cowboy hat and chainsaw aren't so endearing.
Speaking of Crawford, whatever happened to Cindy Sheehan? Is she still alive? Poor lady, you gotta' love her. She got the wake up call of a lifetime. Then; the poor girl actually thought she could do something about it. Protest. Democracy! Speak Out! No, no Cindy; I am sorry the game doesn't work that way. Anyway, someone zip me an email and let me know how Cindy is doing? One day we will all be Cindy Sheehan's if we aren't too scared. Either that or we will hide meekly behind our desks soaking in fear. Or perhaps, we will land somewhere in the middle launching editorial missiles when the men in suits piss us off.
The fear is rampant; I heard John Stewart commenting to Senator Obama about how people loved the things he said but no one thought they were allowed to say it. Now, that is a powerful fear. No one has to tell you the rules; just soak in so much fear and self loathing (thanks Hunter) that you decimate your own soul. Sounds like a grand life. Thanks for the invitation to Earth. LOL! It is tangible, though. Ask any journalist, in fact ask yourself. When was the last time you heard anything about Afghanistan on the news. When talking heads like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are supposed to represent sanity then please, count me among the officially insane. Oh that's right; I forgot about Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a faggot. I mean really, who designated these people to be bastions of righteousness. They are some of the loudest, most obnoxious, rudest human beings on the planet. Yet, they are supposed to be some sort of reputable and respectable purveyors of opinions and news. As loud and obnoxious as they may be, someone is paying good money for them to stay that way. Good God, the Apocalypse is upon us.
I caught my self speaking to a successful businessman who happens to loathe the Republican agenda, so I asked him about the Democrats. All he had to say about them was that they were blank. Blank happened to be a slang word used to describe a private part of the female anatomy. The word in this particular usage was referring to the Democrats lack of courage or to use a male part of the anatomy, balls. Interestingly enough, that put it all into perspective for me. Sure, the Republicans were like Darth Vader but at least they had some balls. The Democrats on the other hand were more like a dismembered C3PO. They sounded really intelligent and could speak well but; they had been neutered.
With all the mud rolling Republicans have been doing this term; the Democrats have a greater opportunity than ever before to guarantee an election victory. If you read Security or Strategy: Either Way, Bush Must Go. You will see a well researched quote from Mr. David Swanson, another American Chronicle contributor. It is as follows, "In each of the nine cases in the past when one party has raised impeachment, that party has benefited in the next elections. In other cases when a party has failed to press for impeachment when the grounds for it were widely known, that party has suffered. (Remember Iran Contra?)" When I read that fact; I was literally astounded. No kidding, I thought to myself. The Democrats actually have a way to lock down a victory and hit a homerun. I mean; it makes as much sense as anything coming out of Bill O'Reilly's mouth. It reminded me of one of those sports statistics. No baseball team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a best of seven series. Most of the times this is true and the Republicans are not your 2004 Red Sox. If they ever had a curse it wasn't losing; unless we are talking about wars.
We got a couple of war things going on now, don't we. There is that Taleban thing and we got the Iraq thing. Is the Plan for A New American Century working out? I am really not sure but I think the authors and defenders of it known as the O.S.P., Office of Special Plans, readily denounced Bush and the Iraq invasion roughly a year ago. I guess the good part is that it has been quiet in Asia. China, North Korea and Russia have been quiet. At least they aren't supplying the enemy this time. Right? Wait a minute, I forgot, who is the enemy? Terror is the enemy. Or is it Terra? I have to check with Al Gore.
What good has come out of these wars? I heard the surge was successful. Are we talking about Haiti/Panama successful or are we talking "Rolling Thunder" successful? I guess there has been some good for some guys. Some guys got paid and paid well but America didn't get paid. Then again was it ever really about America in the first place. Now we are a hated and loathed by every single country in the world. So much so that ...well; I'll get to that in a minute.
I wrote a couple of papers about this whole mess in 2003. I have to review them just to figure what is going on. That's right, it was my first blog on the OSIIS, the Open Source Internet Intelligence Service. It was at the bottom of the page under the quotes by Franklin, Gandhi, Plato, Orwell and Lincoln. Well, not right after, because there was also a story by James Risen called, State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration. After all of that stuff is the big story. It was a follow up to my original paper titled, The Euro-Asian Alliance: Shifts in the Global Balance of Power.
The premise of that paper, to put it in laymen's terms is that; the U.S. was pulling a huge bogey by going into Iraq, for a neophyte in 2003 that wasn't a bad premise. After all, I outguessed a bunch of Congressman and Senators. Why was it such a huge bogey? Primarily because every other country in the world had cut business deals for a piece of that black gold laying under the Iraqi sand. Other countries includes; France, Germany, Russia, China and many more. So sure, we need long term oil resource security. If I want to keep want to keep playing on my Lenovo T43 while I sip Kona Coffe and smoke American Spirits we definitely gotta' have some of that oil. That is a fact but, the way we went about getting it was like a WWF wrestler crashing a Board of Directors meeting. Not to mention that by late 2006 America had burned roughly five billion gallons of oil fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, like the wrestler, America had its way with the Board. My premise was that the Board would meet again and they would figure out how to get rid of that wrestler. That premise manifested the second paper, the one at the bottom of my first OSIIS blog. It was originally titled, G.U.T.R.U.S.H., Globally United Terror Response to United States Hegemony.
The premise is as it sounds. Potentially, the rest of the world would tire of our unilateral actions and unite to destroy us. Covert financing of the opposition in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would provide them the opportunity to do so. Well, as you might guess, these papers drew a lot of attention and not the kind anyone wanted. Perhaps even moreso, because they came from some guy who had "dropped out" of society. Not only that; this dropout was living in woods so remote that there was no electricity or water. What I did have though was a good Honda generator, a giant catchment tank, a cute chick and plenty of basil plants to keep me busy. I mean really, what else does a man need in life? So, a paper like that coming from me was definitely a surprise.
Anyhoo, at first I thought all the broo-haha was because I had maybe, accidentally, given some enemies/terrorists some ideas. But no, that couldn't be it. The Chinese and the Russians financed North Vietnam throughout the entire Vietnam War. Not only that they supplied them by land and by sea through North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. America lost that war and the South Vietnamese lost Saigon. Unlike our current administration the Russians and Chinese aren't idiots. They put the pieces to the puzzle before so they could obviously do it again. Then I thought maybe, its because "terrorists" could use these ideas. I realized that couldn't be it because the terrorists, specifically Al Qaeda, was organized and financed by the United States to help them beat the Russians. So that was old hat. Finally, I figured out what it was. Someone had decided that they were going to have their war and in 2003 they didn't want anyone ruining it, especially some Basil eating idiot whose favorite past time was playing NBA Live and All Madden Football.
The great thing about the whole scenario is that now I look like a prophet. Jonas, my name, actually was a prophet. Perhaps, it is time to give my Ninevah speech. Aww, nah, no need for a speech. Just read those two papers. Paper #1, Part 1 has already been acted out. Paper#2, Part #2 is in progress. Oh and one more thing. It is a bit childish but, "Nnyah, nnyah, nnyah, nnyah, nnyah; I told you so." Pardon the regression but its the least I could do. After this incredibly long read, at least for the President, you may be asking yourself what does all of this have to do with the election. The connection is that from top to bottom it is all politics. War and the 2008 election all come down to politics. Not only is it politics but it is Presidential, Administration and Party politics.
Politics, politics, politics; how do we love thee? It has been so exciting to watch the political season unravel. The rough and tumble debates mixed with heavy post-holiday campaigning are making for finale more exciting then the Super Bowl game. Will Barack Obama be America's first black President? Or, will Hillary Clinton be America's first lady president? Is either one possible? Is America reaching for a new political frontier?
Is Barack Obama playing the race card? Did Hillary disrespect Martin Luther King? Was Bill Clinton really the first black President? It is all such high drama. I can barely contain myself. Has politics ever been so polarizing and nuanced at the same time.
What about the Republicans. What is happening with them? There was the sexy Mormon, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, Mr. 9/11. Don't forget Ron Paul, making the Constitution and states rights an issue; who does that anymore? What a coterie we have this year. Speaking of politicians, whatever happened to Wesley Clarke? It all really is too much, at least for my feeble mind. So, to make things easier; I have narrowed down my political desires into one simple request. That is as follows.
When it comes down to the 2008 election, may the powers that be, please; feed me my illusion well done with extra dressing. If there is some vast right wing conspiracy, as Hillary Clinton once claimed; then they are not doing a very good job. With all the divisive hub bub about race going on in the Democratic Party there is little need for Neocon subterfuge. So please; I humbly ask the election marionetteers, make the 2008 election palatable enough for the subtley acuitous. I mean, if there is an Illusionati, they really aren't doing a very good job. Elect, pick, choose a President. However it is done. Just make it look good this time. Dress it up a little bit. I don't care who the next President is. According to millions of human beings; it couldn't get any worse then it already is. So, that is my wish for 2008. Let anyone be President; I don't care. But please, oh please; lets put on a good show. The last two elections were so horridly disturbing to my psyche.
Taking a reflective look at the 2004 election, simply put, it was a mess. Only one president, John F. Kennedy, has ever won the presidency without capturing Ohio (1). According to Rolling Stone magazine, the statistical variance between the exit poll and the certified vote count in one Ohio precinct had just under a one in three billion chance of occurring (2 ). Talk about beating the odds. The National Election Data Archive (3) that did the analysis of Ohio exit polls and voting said that the "2004 Ohio Precinct-level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount"(4). Fortunately, the integrity of our elected officials shined forth at that time like a beacon of...well, like a match stick and a paper one at that.
Needing just one Senate vote to object to the election, Senator Barbara Boxer stepped forward. And... only Senator Boxer stepped forward That is not a criticism of the Senate. In fact, that is a 100% improvement in the number of Senators that stepped forward to protest the 2000 election. Kudos. Of course, the glorious Tom Delay, whose ideas the Justice Department labeled as "whacko"
(5.), derided Senator Boxer as being from the "X-Files Wing" of the Democratic Party (6). That X-Files wing was obviously underfunded as Senator Boxer and her objection were rejected in a 1-74 Senate vote.
Speaking of 2000, that was the birth of this election mess and my entree to perennial voting day queasiness. The debacle in Florida gave a new meaning to the word "chad". We had dimpled chads, hanging chads and pregnant chads. Prrraayg-gah-nant chads! I've seen it all. Once again those crazy exit polls were misbehavin'. This caused a premature invocation by the media of Al Gore as the winner. Fortunately, they retracted that statement quickly which restored my faith in there information management systems. Then there was some insanity about Volusia County, and a Hursti Hack (7), wrapped in a Socialist Revolution. Louis Farrakhan was proved wrong as Blacks and Jews united in Palm Beach to vote for Pat Buchanan. These were the best of times. These were the worst of times. Further contributing to the ugliness, was the vehemence with which Al Gore shut down the Democratic representatives protesting that whole Florida mess ( 8).
No one wants to dredge up the past. The best way to prevent that from happening is by not repeating it. So my suggestion is that all the parties come to an agreement. Whoever gets the press to say they won first is the winner. That way we can avoid all the media inspired confusion and mental whiplash. Whatever happens, please; let there be no more failed protests. It is depressing enough to have to watch a protest. It is worse having to watch two failed protests in a row. I suggest that if there is going to be a protest, then both parties should agree to disagree. Have the protest. Let the protest be successful and move on.
My final plea is to those Grand Master conspirators they call the Illusionati. Get it together for 2008, man. You guys are supposed to be controlling the entire world. I like my conspiracies wrapped tightly like Japanese origami. Even if it can't be that ornate; can we at least get some McDonald's-like consistency. I want my conspiracies to be fast, cheap and ready to eat. I am still having a hard time digesting either of those last two Presidential elections.
ps. Does anyone have work for an out of work writer? I have way too much time on my hands. :)