Cover-ups and withholding ballot information: same old Republican tricks
By Carla Binion
December 12, 2000 | Sociologist Max Weber once said that the first line of
defense of any bureaucracy is the withholding of information. George W.
Bush's team includes some of his dad's cronies, such as James Baker, George
Schultz, and Richard Thornberg. None of them are strangers to withholding
information as a means of defending corruption.It makes sense that the Bush
team now argues against counting the ballots. They have long favored secrecy
over disclosure.George H. W. Bush was CIA Director in the mid-1970s. The CIA,
and George W.'s dad, are no strangers to rigged elections—in Third World
countries.In 1984, when Manuel Noriega chose Nicolas Barletta to be Panama's
president, the Reagan/Bush administration knew the election was rigged, that
ballot boxes were stuffed, and that documents were falsified. ( Imperial
Alibis, Stephen R. Shalom, South End Press, 1993.)Under Reagan/Bush, the U.
S. government funneled money to Barletta's campaign. Following the vote
fraud, U. S. aid to Panama grew from $12 million to $75 million. After the
"election," Reagan invited Barletta to the White House to congratulate him on
his win. (Imperial Alibis.)Secretary of State George Schultz, adviser to
George W. in Campaign 2000, attended Barletta's inauguration and lauded
Panama's "democratization." (Unreliable Sources, Norman Solomon and Martin A.
Lee, Carol Publishing Group, 1992.)Bush team adviser and daddy-Bush crony,
James Baker, said recently that the team is not trying to "run out the clock"
regarding ballot counting. However, Baker was part of the Reagan
administration when the Reagan/Bush crew used delay tactics to evade
responsibility for Iran-contra.Remember how George H. W. Bush got away with
his Iran-contra misdeeds? Reagan's attorney general, Richard Thornburgh
(another current member of George W.'s team), claimed that certain
Iran-contra evidence—including names and locations that had already been
published in the press—were government secrets too sensitive to reveal in
court. Independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh called them "fictional secrets."
In addition, the Reagan-Bush team stonewalled endlessly. They delayed
releasing critical records to the court and hid personal notes. (Blank Check,
Tim Weiner, 1990.)Journalist Tim Weiner says that by hiding key evidence
behind a cloak of government secrecy "the Justice Department drove a stake
into the heart of the criminal cases against North, Poindexter and Secord. It
effectively prevented the independent prosecutor appointed to try the cases
from functioning independently." (Blank Check, Weiner.)George H. W. Bush
participated in a cover-up again after he became president by arbitrarily
pardoning his cronies. CNN political analyst William Schneider said Bush
pardoned his political allies "for illegal activities in which he himself may
have been implicated." (Lawrence Walsh, Firewall, 1997.)Recently Supreme
Court members (some appointed by George W.'s dad) stopped the ballot recount.
Reagan appointee, Justice Antonin Scalia, said counting the votes might harm
Bush by "casting a cloud" on his legitimacy.That is not the first time in
recent history that the Supreme Court ruled against the public's right to
know. When Public Citizen filed a Freedom of Information Act request to
examine a domestic CIA operation, MKULTRA, the CIA refused to release the
documents. In 1985, the Supreme Court ruled for the CIA. The Court held that
"Congress vested in the Director of Central Intelligence very broad authority
to protect all sources of intelligence information from disclosure." (A
Culture of Secrecy, Athan G. Theoharis, University Press of Kansas, 1998.)A
Bush win will always appear illegitimate unless the votes are counted. The
public already knows enough about the Bush team's history, tactics and values
to raise questions about the candidate's legitimacy. For example:(1) We know
that certain Bush team members have no particular respect for the law,
considering their participation in, and cover-up of, their Iran-contra
involvement.(2) We know that some Bush team members (and certain members of
the CIA) have little love for democracy—at least not for democracy in Third
World countries.The question is, do those members of the Bush team respect
American election law and American democracy? Do they see any difference
between elections and democracy in the Third World and in our own? And, one
more question that has been asked repeatedly but never answered honestly—why
doesn't the Bush team want the ballots recounted unless they are afraid Gore
won?
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