No User posted:
>
> http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14686-2000Nov14.html
>
> By Howard Kurtz
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Tuesday, November 14, 2000; Page C1
>
> In yet another bizarre twist to an already surreal campaign, the head
> of Fox News's Election Night decision desk - who recommended calling
> Florida, and the election, for George W. Bush - turns out to be Bush's
> first cousin.
[...lots of other stuff on same subject snipped...]
Happy hunting grounds for conspiracy theorists. GW just scrapes though
in Jeb's state with the help of James Ellis (related to the Bushes but
presumably unrelated to the British cryptographer, or the Irish actor
:-) Bush pere was once CIA supremo. And then the Florida SoS,
presumably at least with the knowledge of Jeb Bush, if not his active
encouragement, tries to stop the hand-counting. And Ellis is an employee
of Rupert Murdoch of all the dodgy people.
There is a problem with the voting mechanism in some counties, to most
people the obvious thing to do is to have a look at the ballots and see
what the problem is. If the Republicans appear to be trying to stop
that it makes them look dishonest, even if they aren't being. Now there
may be all sorts of good reasons for that which are nothing to do with
trying to get elected. But from the point of view of just about anyone
else in the world other than an American and Republican voter, it seems
like a cover-up.
Maybe it will be like the 1994 Mull of Kintyre aircrash. (Chinook
helicopter with over 25 intelligence chiefs from Northern Ireland on a
semi-official flight to a social event - crashes & wipes out entire top
ranks of UK forces in Northern Ireland - the peace talks start the next
day - *and* it was flying near its home base of Macrahanish which the
UFOnuts associate with Area 51, Black Helicopters, Aurora, T3 & the
like) It was obviously a conspiracy that no-body will believe it wasn't,
even though it probably really was an accident...
This is like that. If the Republicans persist in trying to stop the hand
counts no-one will believe they aren't trying to cover something up,
even if they are doing it for honourable reasons.
The final outcome may depend on brotherly love. In its absence there
might be a strong temptation for Jeb Bush to force through the
hand-counts, let the Florida EC vote fall to Gore, and come back as a
candidate himself in 4 years time, getting the sympathy vote...
> Critics say the Ellis connection will reinforce Fox's reputation as a
> conservative network whose anchors include Tony Snow, a former Bush
> White House staffer, and such commentators as Newt Gingrich. Fox
> maintains it merely provides a balanced alternative to the liberal
> networks. But, says Rosenstiel, "the marketing slogan 'We report, you
> decide' is obliterated by the fact that one candidate's first cousin
> is actually deciding, and then they report."
If Fox is run by Murdoch that has to be more than a reputation. You
would not like to see how much us lefties still hate Murdoch. After all
these years I still won't buy his UK newspapers. Not that you miss much
by not reading them.
Ken
