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Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive. Editorial 12/01/00 note: for links to information resources on Indecision 2000, go to NewsBoom THE LITTLE PRINCE GOES TO WASHINGTON By now, the Little Prince has decided he will get to move into Daddy's old house after all. So after his last Howdy-Doody-meets-Alfred-E.-Newman hostage video TV appearance, he's retreated to the ranch while the grown-ups prepare a slow-motion coup-d'-etat. The Austin brain trust has been put back to work deciding which mentally retarded convict will be executed this week while Daddy's old handlers take over the real work for George II. Andrew Card, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and the rest of the holdovers from the late 80's are running the show now, aided by Congressional Visigoths like House Majority Whip Tom DeLay. Hypocrisy is nothing new from the crowd that sucked up to Manuel Noriega until he became inconvenient and left Saddam Hussein in power on purpose so he could counter-balance Iran. So what if the Little Prince lost the popular vote for president by roughly the population of Wichita? Why should it matter that GOP election officials in two Florida counties let Republican operatives illegally fill in voter i.d. numbers on ballots, busily working for days like monks illuminating a medieval manuscript? What's the diff if a middle class mini-mob led by DeLay staffers Tom Pyle and Mike Murphy muscled Miami-Dade officials into cancelling a recount? Who cares about the GOP crocodile tears over "military" absentee overseas ballots (most of which were actually civilian)? So what if overseas ballots without postmarks had been rejected in every election until now? Count 'em, dammit! Counting them, of course, is something completely different from counting marginal ballots from Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties. The overseas ballots belong--they say--to upstanding white Christian military men and women while those other ballots belong to those people--you know, blacks, Jews, old Democratic retirees. Like James Baker told George I when he was worried about Jewish backlash against his Middle East policy :"Screw 'em, sir. They didn't vote for us anyway." Brother Jeb's Florida Legislature, meanwhile, is set to ignite its' own Fort Sumter, preparing to ignore the totals if the Florida Supreme Court orders a full recount and Gore wins. They're ready to certify the Little Prince as the winner no matter what. They've even hired three Constitutional lawyers at state expense to tell 'em how to do it, including one attorney from a fundamentalist Bible-based law school. Presumably, no voodoo priests from the Zombie U. Law School in Port-au-Prince were available. Al Gore, meantime, is so busy acting like a sanctimonious crackhead sweating over his next fix of votes that the public is getting tired of him. Who can blame them? One more staged unctious photo-op lecture from a man with all the warmth of Dracula and most of us would probably be ready to give Harry Browne the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But that doesn't mean that the unholy union of the Thousand Points of Light retreads with the rabid professional Clinton-haters from Capitol Hill, talk radio, and Judicial Watch should be able to take a battering ram to the doors of the Executive Mansion. You want to count all the unpostmarked ballots? Fine. You say the post-dated voter i.d.'s on absentee ballots from Seminole and Martin counties shouldn't keep them from being counted? Fine also. Count all of them. And while you're at it, count all the ballots from Palm Beach and Miani-Dade and Broward. In fact, re-counting every vote in the state under the supervision of Federal Marshals wouldn't be a bad idea. It could still be done by the December 12th deadline for sorting things out. Otherwise, the Little Prince will take office with all the legitimacy of any other unqualified eldest son who takes over Daddy's business. And you know what the employees think of that. |
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