-Caveat Lector-
Sunday Daily Telegraph
Sunday 19 Nov 2000
Smooth man Gore starts to play rough
By Mark Steyn
BOB HOPE and Bing Crosby put it best in The Road to Bali: "He
gets his shirts straight from Paris/ And his socks from Argyll/
Talks like a highbrow/ But he plays Chicago style."
That's Al Gore off on the road to the White House: standing
behind the podium at the Vice-President's residence, he murmurs
soothing niceties about "the will of the people" and "the rule of
law". Good suit, white shirt, blue tie, bless his cotton socks.
Lofty, sonorous, vaguely Constitution-like phrases in complete
sentences. Talks like a highbrow. But he plays Chicago style -
like his campaign chairman's famous dad, Mayor Richard Daley, for
whom the Chicago graveyards were always the most reliable
constituency.
Al and the boys are now playing Chicago style in the Democratic
precincts of Florida, which are for the most part one big
sun-kissed palm-dappled graveyard. So while Highbrow Al was in
Washington solemnly calling on Governor Bush to help him "improve
the tone" of this political stand-off, Chicago Al's goons were
down south trashing the reputation of Katherine Harris, Florida's
Secretary of State, who'd had the temerity to insist on abiding
by the election laws. Ms Harris is now the designated Ken Starr
of Campaign 2000 and as such was denounced by Gore spokesman
Chris Lehane as a "hack" and a "Soviet commissar". Alan
Dershowitz, distinguished Harvard professor and former OJ Simpson
mouthpiece, was on the airwaves calling her "corrupt", and "a
crook" who "laundered money". Are you sure of that, Professor?
Surely if she was that good, she'd be on the Clinton-Gore team.
Meanwhile, Democratic State Representative Irving Slosberg was
stopped by police and found to have a Palm Beach County
"Votamatic" ballot-punching machine in his car. "I asked Mr
Slosberg to return it to me," said Denise Cote, director of
public affairs, "and he said No, he intended to use it." That's
the spirit, Irv! And let's not forget Broward County, where the
manual "recount" is proceeding amid a mountain of fallen chads on
the floor. The chad is the little bit of paper next to the
candidate's name that gets punched out when you put the ballot in
the Votamatic. In other words, if you're just counting existing
ballots, there shouldn't be any chads on the counting-room floor.
But, whether by accident or design, the little fellers keep
detaching themselves from the ballot, thereby creating more and
more new votes. Initially, Broward County's Canvassing Board
voted not to "recount", but Chicago Al prevailed on Judge Robert
Lee, the recalcitrant Democrat who'd cast the deciding vote, to
come to his senses. Likewise with another Dem stronghold, Dade
County, which on Friday knuckled under and agreed to "recount".
And now that the absentee ballots have been tallied, Chicago Al
has the advantage of knowing precisely how many hitherto
undiscovered "votes" his operatives need to find.
And, if Katherine Harris refuses to be steamrollered by Chicago
Al, the Dems are already looking down the road - to the 538
members of the Electoral College who will formally vote for the
President next month. These "electors" are almost all lowly party
members being rewarded for their service with a tiny moment in
the spotlight. If Bush wins Florida's 25 electors, he'll have 271
to Chicago Al's 267. If three Republicans were to switch their
votes, Gore would win. Two of South Carolina's eight Republican
electors say they've already been approached by the Democrats.
On Thursday, Bob Beckel, a Democratic consultant, was reported
by The Wall Street Journal to be "checking into the background of
Republican electors, toward persuading a handful of them to vote
for Mr Gore". "I call mostly Democrats, but some Republicans,
too," he says, "and ask, 'Who are these electors, and what do you
know about them?' I just want to know . . ." Ah, an enquiring
mind is a wonderful thing. "Opposition research", they call it,
and everyone does it, but never before to the Electoral College.
Still, who knows what might turn up? A bizarre sexual habit, some
financial difficulties, the sort of thing that might be useful in
a month's time . . .
On Friday, Warren Christopher, the former Secretary of State to
Bill Clinton and now mob lawyer to Chicago Al, announced that,
regardless of how the Florida Supreme Court ruled, if the final
count was certified on Saturday and Bush declared the winner, the
Vice-President would still not concede. Nothing, it seems, can
stop Chicago Al - not the count, not the recount, not the
certification, the electoral college, the inauguration, not
Hillary doing her first exploratory "listening tour" of Iowa, not
the 2004 New Hampshire primary . . . Chicago Al is prepared to
count and sue and sue and count and counter-sue and sewer-count
for as long as it takes to become the first Leader of the Free
World from a banana republic.
So what should Dubya do? Well, he could concede. John O'Sullivan,
Mrs Thatcher's sometime speechwriter, thinks that a Gore victory
would be in the best interests of the Republican Party: Gore
would be a tainted President unable to get anything through a
Republican Congress and destined to be blamed for the coming
recession due any moment now. I'm not so sure. The lesson of the
Clinton Presidency is that, for Republicans, the other shoe never
drops. Were Chicago Al to steal enough votes, in three months'
time his cheerleaders in the media would be saying that though he
came to the Presidency in "difficult circumstances" - ie, losing
the election - he's made great efforts to unite the country,
stymied only by "strident", "mean-spirited", "partisan"
Republicans.
So, on balance, I'd rather Bush played hardball: encourage a
separation-of-powers stand-off between Florida's Secretary of
State and the Supreme Court, then pitch it into the
Republican-controlled state legislature to choose the electors.
That would require political nerve, but it would work, and it
would do the Republic some service after what we've seen in the
last few days. Say what you like about old Mayor Daley but he
fixed his votes on election day and under cover of darkness.
Chicago Al is fixing this one retrospectively and in the glare of
the cameras - and, as the thoroughly Clintonised Democratic Party
should surely have taught us, getting away with it in broad
daylight is more damaging to the rule of law than getting away
with it in the shadows.
This post-election period has been, according to the pious
network anchors, a "civics lesson", but it would be more accurate
to call it a masterclass in Chicago style. Two years ago, worldly
Dems told us not to worry: the corruption was confined strictly
to oral sex, and, sophisticated chaps that we are, we could all
understand that, couldn't we? Now, with hindsight, it seems more
like a useful dry run for a more ambitious project.
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
=================================================================
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
