NYTimes Editorial: The Fantasy Behind The Scandal ("Voter Fraud" & The Attorney Purge)

[Hissyspit]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/opinion/15sun1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=login

Editorial
The Fantasy Behind the Scandal

Published: April 15, 2007
The more we learn about the White House’s purge of United States attorneys, the more a single thread runs through it: the Bush administration’s campaign to transform the minor problem of voter fraud into a supposed national scourge. When the public first learned about the firing of eight United States attorneys, administration officials piously declared that many of the prosecutors had ill served the public by failing to aggressively pursue voter fraud cases (against Democrats, naturally). But the more we examine this issue, the more ludicrous those claims seem.

Last week, we learned that the administration edited a government-ordered report on voter fraud to support its fantasy. The original version concluded that among experts “there is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud.” But the publicly released version said, “There is a great deal of debate on the pervasiveness of fraud.” It’s hard to see that as anything but a deliberate effort to mislead the public.

Sound familiar? In President Bush’s first term, a White House official, who had been the oil industry’s front man in trying to discredit the science of global warming, repeatedly edited government reports to play down links between climate change and greenhouse gases. And then there was the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which turned reports on old, dubious and false tales about weapons of mass destruction into warnings of clear, present and supposedly mortal dangers.

- snip -

The only solution is to get these issues out into the open. It is good that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will finally testify in the Senate this week. But Mr. Rove, who seems to be at the heart of this affair, should also be required to testify under oath — and in public. Even the Wizard of Oz eventually came out from behind the curtain.

MORE

[GCP]

1. At last the real story is getting out

It's ALL about voter suppression - they KNOW it's the only way they can hang onto power.

[Faygo Kid]

2. NY Times nails it. Rove can't rig every election - but he can disenfranchise voters

The replacement of the U.S. attorneys with hack appointments was to assure 1. that there would be no interference with GOP efforts to cook the votes in 2008 2. to trump up charges of voter fraud so as to impose schemes like voter ID to disenfranchise the poor, the elderly and others likely to vote Dem. This part of the Times editorial should be shouted from the rooftops:

. . .It’s obvious why the Bush administration would edit those documents, but why the voting report? Because charges of voter fraud are a key component of the Republican electoral strategy. If the public believes there are rampant efforts to vote fraudulently, or to register voters improperly, it increases support for measures like special voter ID’s, which work against the poor, the elderly, minorities and other disenfranchised groups that tend to support Democrats. Claims of rampant voter fraud also give the administration an excuse to cut back prosecutions of the real problem: officials who block voters’ access to the polls. . .

[Old and In the Way]

4. And focus his opportunity to the swing states.

The targeted US A's were in states that might be considered toss-ups in 2008. I think the plan was to try to make Democratic corruption an issue in these states as well as use the US a office to challenge the vote results there.

It's all about maintaining the WH for Republicans in 2008. If they don't, there all taking permanent vacations to Dubai or Paraguay or any other country that doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US.

[Faygo Kid]

11. Yup. Maybe Rove can buy Mengele's old house in Brazil.

I hope that in my lifetime the good guys win and we see this crowd get the justice and verdict of history they so richly deserve. And that Americans never let this happen again (even the dittohead 25% who do as they are told by their handlers, e.g. Rush et al).

[ProgressiveAmPatriot]

3. If only they would put this on the front page

[spindrifter]

5. This is a great piece--we should!

leave papers open to this in every coffee shop in the country.

"It’s obvious why the Bush administration would edit those documents, but why the voting report? Because charges of voter fraud are a key component of the Republican electoral strategy. If the public believes there are rampant efforts to vote fraudulently, or to register voters improperly, it increases support for measures like special voter ID’s, which work against the poor, the elderly, minorities and other disenfranchised groups that tend to support Democrats. Claims of rampant voter fraud also give the administration an excuse to cut back prosecutions of the real problem: officials who block voters’ access to the polls."

[Tatiana]

6. This is, quite frankly, outrageously unacceptable!

"The Bush administration was so determined to pursue this phantom scourge that it deported a legal Florida resident back to his native Pakistan for mistakenly filling out a voter registration card when he renewed his driver’s license."

Time after time again, this administration shows that it believes it has no boundaries. Our nations laws don't apply to them; the Constitution is just a piece of paper. There are no standards, no sense of ethics, no compassion, no HUMANITY in any of their actions or policies. It is disturbing in a way that I can't explain how with thousands of people dead because of an unjust war, our environment trashed for the sake of dollars, the destruction of the middle-class way of life as we know it, this Attorney scandal may be what takes this administration down.

I guess I shouldn't look a gift horse (distasteful as it may be) in the mouth, however.

[Hissyspit]

7. .

[Raksha]

8. K & R - Good editorial. It gets right to the heart of the issue. n/t

[Hissyspit]

9. kicking this again for Sunday folks n/t

[Kolesar]

10. The Pukes wrote a book on this a year ago; Why did the NYTimes sit on the story?

Author: Fund, John H., 1957-
Title: Stealing elections : how voter fraud threatens our democracy
Pub info: San Francisco, CA : Encounter Books, 2004.

Contents: Democracy imperiled -- A conflict of visions -- The myth of the stolen election -- Voters without borders -- Politically active after death -- The ghost of LBJ -- Election reservations -- Tropical Tammany -- High-tech voting -- Where do we go from here?
--0--
It is written by some propagandist from the Wall Street Journal

I saw this wretched volume on the shelf next to real books about the stolen election by Fitrakis, etc. Why did not the NY Times buy this book, read it, and explode the myths and propaganda in it years ago? The NY Times could have been reporting on the Federal Attorneys' purge immediately after it happened instead of waiting until the activists pushed the story to the fore.

http://sciron.cuyahoga.lib.oh.us/search/Xvoter%20fraud&SORT=R/Xvoter%20fraud&SORT=R&SUBKEY=voter%20fraud/1%2C2%2C2%2CB/frameset&FF=Xvoter%20fraud&SORT=R&1%2C1%2C

WSJ's online editorial sewer: http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110005838

[Hissyspit]

12. Wouldn't be the first story they sat on. n/t

[Kolesar]

14. I sent a screaming hot missile into the WSJ inbox today

Dear Editor and Mr. John Fund,

It looks like your projections about voter fraud are in serious trouble in light of the story of the federal prosecutors’ purge.

I would advocate that the Wall Street Journal run an op ed by Mr. Bob Fitrakis in order to illuminate the wider picture of what really happened during the 2004 election.

Sincerely,

theborealavenger

http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/stealingelections/

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781595580696&itm=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/opinion/15sun1.html?_r=2&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

April 15, 2007

(NY TIMES) Editorial

The Fantasy Behind the Scandal
The more we learn about the White House’s purge of United States attorneys, the more a single thread runs through it: the Bush administration’s campaign to transform the minor problem of voter fraud into a supposed national scourge.
...editorial continues...

[Kurovski]

13. K&R

More stories on the Republican "Voter fraud" fraud here in the Election Forum's daily thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x470902