Dubya's WorldDubya's Worldthe Rule of Mob
Eric Alterman for MSNBC:
Nov. 24 - It's getting harder and harder to believe one's eyes and ears as George Bush, James Baker and the Republicans grow ever more brazen in their effort to seize the presidency with or without a lawful mandate. As amazing as this sounds, it is distinctly possible that the 2000 election will be decided by a bunch of riotous thugs, operating under the direct control of the Republican Party.
What was an uninspired campaign for the presidency has become an absolutely critical fight for democracy. Gore and Lieberman must ignore pundits and party hack who say they must surrender.
The most significant outrage occurred Wednesday, when ABC News correspondent Bill Redeker discovered that Republican operatives, working out of a Florida-based mobile home, had sent in busloads of hooligans to shut down by force the court-ordered Miami-Dade recount at the Stephen P. Clark Government Center. Republican operatives also set up telephone banks to urge their footsoldiers to join in the riot. Miami's most important Spanish-language radio station, Radio Mambi, issued a summons to all pro-Republican Cuban-Americans to come stir the pot further, with charges of anti-Latino racism against the canvassing board.
When it was over, the rule of the mob was triumphant. The three canvassers voted to walk away from the recount whose tally would likely have led to Al Gore's victory over George Bush in Florida and in the presidential election. One of its members, David Leahy, acknowledged the protests were a factor in his decision. The other two, perhaps fearful of their safety, declined all interviews. As the mob celebrated its victory, its Republican Party masterminds transferred their mobile home/base of operations to Broward County, where they employed the same tactics against that county's canvassers on Friday.
Some conservative pundits have gone so far as to celebrate the triumph of mob rule over democracy and rule of law. Paul Gigot, a commentator for PBS's "NewsHour" and the Wall Street Journal editorial page, praised what he termed the "bourgeois riot." Gigot reporting from the scene, witnessed John Sweeney, a visiting GOP monitor, telling an aide, "Shut it down," and thereby inspiring what he called the "semi-spontaneous combustion" that forced the counters to "cave in."
A loyal conservative, Gigot was either unwilling to mention or unaware of the fact that the riot had been pre-arranged by Republican operatives nearby. Nevertheless, he got the sequence he observed right. "The Republicans marched on the counting room en masse, chanting 'Three Blind Mice,' and 'Fraud, Fraud, Fraud'... let it be known that 1,000 local Cuban-American Republicans [a group to whom violence as an instrument of political intimidation is not exactly unknown] were on the way."
What's amazing in the few reporters other that ABC's Redeker, that have covered this explosive story is the lack of outrage at these tactics.
Not until Joe Lieberman came out on Friday afternoon and denounced this dangerous development did the networks and most newspapers even notice the story. Most of the press reports seemed to believe that the Miami-Dade counters had simply changed their minds for no reason at all.
In fact, Wednesday's Republican-sanctioned riot is merely one facet of a campaign that has been remarkably unabashed in its willingness overturn democratic practices and ignore the rule of law in pursuit of victory. House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey has announced that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives reserves the right to overturn the entire election should it decide it does not like the result. "We in the House must be aware of one fact: In the end, when the final analysis is brought to the House, it is our duty to accept or reject that," Armey told the Associated Press. He is joined in these anti-democratic threats by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who has indicted the Florida Supreme Court for allegedly ignoring "the most fundamental principles of our democracy," promising, "This cannot stand."
What was an uninspired campaign for the presidency has become an absolutely critical fight for democracy. And it is for that reason rather than his own political prospects that Al Gore must ignore the calls from the pundits and the party hacks that he and Joe Lieberman surrender. History has finally given the hyper-cautious Gore a chance to become an authentic American hero. All he has to do to become one is take his own advice:
Stay and Fight.
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