Is Bush a bit iffy?

This is a re-post from one of the "Iraq" threads, with a little extra bit. I'd like to have some info-sharing on the good and the bad George W Bush has done so far in his political career (oh hell, and previously for that matter. Most of it's relevant). I thought we could start the ball rolling with this one then...

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FLORIDA: IS BUSH THE PRESIDENT?:

Well, ok, bit difficult to say if GW was behind this fixing fiddle i'm about to suggest (it wouldn't be just him now would it anyway), but he certainly seems to be connected to some of those involved...

I have a report from a tv program here called Newsnight (very sobre and reputable, normally shown on BBC2 in Britain) , where correspondant Greg Palast found some interesting things in Florida.

They claim two big things/"stats" in this program:

1) That "22,000 black and mostly democratic voters were excluded from the electoral rolls by the private company that compiled them" i.e. Data Base Technologies.

2) That an estimated 20, 000 additional votes were not counted because Kathryn [sp?] Harris (Jeb Bush's Secretary of State, in charge of Florida's vote count) blocked the hand recounts in certain counties.

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Ok, evidence for No1 - D.B.T.'s Felons:


Clayton Roberts (Harris' Director of Elections. Oh, she was also Co-Chair of Bush's Presidential Campaign by the way. No conflict of interests there then) agreed to have an interview for the program. However, when they revealed that they had "obtained" a copy of the contract between Jeb's Division of Elections and DBT, Roberts looked very worried indeed.

He said simply: the statutes require they employ a private company. DBT won the ($4 mil) bid.

Then that man done scurry out. If he had a tail it wouldn't have been wagging.

The documents they obtained seem to state that DBT is responsible for verification that the lists they compile of felons not able to vote are accurate.

The first list they released contained 8,000 names submitted from Texas by GW's "state officials". "Almost none" were felons according to the program.

Local officials apparently "raised a ruckus" and DBT issued a new list - naming 58, 000 felons in total.

The one county (they dont say/I'm not sure which) that went to the expense of checking their list name by name found it was 95% inaccurate.

That's a lot of innocent people being branded criminals/loosing their votes, if it's true. Worrying. People with similar surnames and dates of birth apparently got caught in the net and weren't checked.

The only later comments to come out of DBT were:

Vice-President, Mr Lee, who said DBT and Clayton Roberts would have liked to have more names on the list.

Roberts admitted off camera that he never checked if DBT were checking the lists properly.

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Alright. Point2 (It'll be over soon ) - Harris the harridan?

Ok, so Harris apparently blocked recounts/handcounts in Gabston after a technical failure meant 1 in 8 votes wasn't getting counted. The program alleges a 700 vote profit to Gore was lost here.

She also blocked the recount of 22,000 votes in Palm Beach county (after "wacky butterfly ballots" caused "mis-reads" - tho i've heard those things were designed by the Democrats )



Anyways: Did both the Bushes and their teams know what was going on? Looks like they should have done/did. Looks like some extensive planning in there too. Looks like power politics pitching down it's peculiar parabola again (excuse me if i spit - it's all the Ps)

As one millionaire-type allegedly said at the Democrats post-election 10,000 plate meal thing, "We would have done the same". So.....

I'd like to hear any examples of dodgy dealings by the Democrats as well, to balance up these accusations (summarisable as: George W Bush's brother and the Co-Chair of his Presidential Campaign used their influence in Florida to remove "black" voters from the electoral roll, and consequently remove more Democrats than Republicans, and also blocked certain re-counts which were likely to be favourable to the Democrats.)

There are other accusations in Michael Moore's book "Stupid white men" (originally "Stupid White Man". You can guess who ) but we can leave them for now (I don't agree with everything old Moore-ishness says, especially not about Northern Ireland, but he's got some good stuff in there)

Reasoned refutations very welcome.

golgot out

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Yes, "Team Bush" as it were, fixed the election, and they also, did you know, pulled strings to get GWB the party's nomination over more popular and better qualified candidates like John McCain. It pays to have the ex-head of the CIA as your dad. Personally, I think that George the second is a puppet of people such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft, all former George the first cabinet members. Not that he is stupid, (he isn't) but he's under a lot of pressure from the entire Republican Party to do what they tell him to.
History will not be kind to George W., or at least I hope it won't.

Anyone ELSE in 2004!

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"You, me, everyone...we are all made of star stuff." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

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As a citizen of Arizona, I demand you take that back!
Mccain is in no way popular, nor is he qualified to do anything.

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--Winston Churchill

Fact is that in Republican circles, McCain was more popular than Bush is all I'm saying. I don't particularly like the guy either, but it is a fact. And anyone is more qualified to lead our great country than George W.

Thanks for re-posting that, Gol. I'll try to get to it shortly. I'm working just now, but had to reply to this:You're implying that the Republican party knowingly passed over it's most popular candidate despite the fact that they knew quite well that the election would be close? Label me skeptical.

I am implying that and I do label you skeptical. But then why isn't McCain president right now? Bush #1 has a lot of influnce to this day in the G.O.P., and to underestimate that is like sticking your head in the sand. and it wasn't close. Bush #2 LOST the popular vote. The supreme court just stepped in ( The supreme court full of people nominated in the Reagan/Bush #1 era I might add) and made him president. (This was well documented in hundreds of newspapers. The fact people choose to ignore it is just plain sad) Seems more fishy than charlie tuna....

Aha, good to have you both back in the fray!

Woah. Right. I can see i'm gonna lag behind on all the background here (i have got my own set of slippery fish over here to keep track of )

So is this John McCain guy perceived as having been passed over then, and if so what's the reason given for him loosing out? (I ask coz you are native and grass roots and such, and coz i'm too lazy to find out. And i'm busy making some exploding cows. Damn, that was nearly my shortest post.)

McCain isn't President because he was not, in fact, more popular than Dubya. As for Bush Senior's influence: I'm sure he's got some influence, but frankly I don't think he's got much. And even if he did, I don't think he's got enough to convince the Republican party to put anything other than their most popular candidate forward.


What the? Of course it was close! It was just about the closest election in our nation's history. And yet you'd have us believe that the Republican party was so intent on bowing to the influence of a former, retired, unpopular President so that they'd knowingly hurt a legitimate chance at re-claiming the Presidency by putting their second-best candidate out on the battlefield? Fat chance.

As for the Supreme Court: I'm aware of their role in the last election, and frankly I don't see anything fishy about it at all. Winning after the 89th recount...now that would have been fishy.

Okay, I will concede this point for now, (Though you're ignoring Bush #1's status as former CIA head. That counts much more than being an ex-President, as well as the many former Bush #1 staffers who still hold offices.) but THIS I will not concede at all:

The supreme court put the halt on the recounts because Bush did not win. Lets face it. Reread Golgot's first post. 100% FACT. The fix was in, and when it still didn't get Bush into office, they stopped the recount and HANDED him the presidency. Mr. Limpett is not this fishy! Gore won the popular vote. The people spoke. It's fact. No, I don't like Gore any more than I like Bush, but he really should be president right now. I'm not going to say Bush #1 had anything to do with this, but the whole Republican Party sure as sh*t did. They railroaded and destroyed the credibility of the last non-republican president, (Yes, he WAS a womanizing bastard, but is that WORSE than anything being done now? Lying about sex doesn't even come close to lying about WAR.) and set the stage to put one of their own into office. When Bush #2 started looking like an uninspiring choice, they fixed it. And the supreme court, or the republican justices anyway, played the hugest role in it all.

I'm not ignoring it...I just don't think they'd do anyone a favor if it meant potentially blowing their chance of recapturing the Presidency. On one hand, you portray the Republican party as willing to do anything to capture office, but on the other, you imply that they'd knowingly reduce their chances of winning to satiate a former CIA director who can't really do them much good anymore.


I was watching the election coverage rabidly and they counted the votes several times. And if memory serves, Bush won every recount. The Supreme Court didn't stop anything that hadn't been done several times already.

Fishy? And it wouldn't have been fishy if Gore had been "HANDED" the Presidency after losing the first several counts?


No, he shouldn't, because our President is not elected in terms of the popular vote, as you well know. If you don't like the rules, you can't complain about them after the game.


We are in complete agreement over Clinton. The Republican party's rabid witch hunt hurt their credibility terribly. Ironically, I think the Democratic party is doing the exact same thing now with Dubya. No one takes people that feverishly hateful seriously...nor should they. In both instances, we saw (and are now seeing) little more than a party's bitter resentment over the fact that they aren't in power.

I think that for some, yes, it's resentment, but for others, the current probes into Bush's handling of Iraq are done in the interest of the American people. We DO need to know if we were lied to about Iraq's WMD, we Do need to know whether the intelligence used to send our troops over there was falsified. That's not a witch hunt. Bringing up personal matters that do not have anything to do with the man's ability to govern, That would be a witch hunt. (We will probably see them drag that stuff out soon enough, sadly. Politicians on both sides love to get dirty.)

Did they mention how they came by these estimates?



While I admit that this looks very suspicious, a worried looking man isn't anywhere near enough for indictment.



If this is true, then something (although I'm hesitant to say what that something is) would appear to be up. Do you have any sources handy? I don't ask because I don't trust you, by the way, but merely because personal verification is really the only way to avoid buying into rumors...and when it comes to politics (this election especially), there are a lot of rumors.


The primary accusation against Gore's camp is that they counted ballots which had partially punctured, dented, or "hanging" chads (that is, those little paper holes you punch out next to each candidate's name). Take it for what you will.


I've no doubt there's a number of people in both camps who have adopted a "the ends justifies the means" philosophy towards vote-counting, but I do doubt whether or not we have enough reason to believe that our current President stole the election. More importantly: do we have reason to believe that he tried to cheat, and that Gore did not? If they were both breaking the rules, it becomes rather hard to determine who ought to have won had they both played fair.

I agree; if no WMDs are found, they'll be some serious 'splainin' to do. That's a legitimate question and, potentially, a legitimate gripe. I'm referring more to the myriad of people (voters, primarily, and not elected officials) who keenly insist that the US is currently being presided over by the Lord of Darkness. It's hyperbolic nonsense. Just as Clinton had detractors who spun everything he did negatively, there are droves of people who don't believe Bush has done so much as a single thing right...which is a big red flag in regards to their objectivity, in my mind.

I was about to say something else...and now I've totally forgotten what it was. I'll leave it at that, then, less I start sounding like Golgot.

Just so long as people remember that we do not have a monarchy and that Bush acted with the overwhelming support of advisors/congress/the people.

It's very clear that Iraq had nuclear facilities (which was against the 1991 UN resolution). It's clear that Iraq bought bomb casings from the Soviets (it's documented). What's not clear is if they had the depleted uranium to actually build a bomb. Since Saddam chose to not be forthcoming about this the only two choices I see are:

1). Wait and see. Big Oops if he were able to do it... 9/11 would look like a walk in the park.
2). Use whatever force necessary to prevent his nuclear armament.

He did have the facilities, the scientists and the materials to produce chemical weapons. We know this as he's been using them on his own people for decades.


Yeah, this is a sticky widget. Bush called down the thunder based on GB's (Blair's) intelligence that Iraq was in the process of buying depleted uranium from somewhere in Africa. That data turned out to be false.

The REAL question is what if it weren't? What if, under Bush's watch, Iraq was able to produce and deploy a nuke? I GUARANTEE his dissenters would be in line screaming that he should have known and should have taken steps to ensure this wouldn't happen.

GWB is fighting a thankless battle, for the most part. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. I wish I could approach him and thank him myself because I think he's doing a great job given all of the uncertainty and the weight that he has on his shoulders.

That's just it. It WAS false. It was a forgery. So what are you saying. That we had every right to invade Iraq because it MIGHT not have been? That question is moot. We had NO evidence supporting our claims. We haven't found crap over there, and until we do, I continue to be skeptical of this whole thing. Being suspicious is one thing, laying waste to a whole country and plunging it's people into chaos over that suspicion is...well, insane!

When it comes to nuclear weapons, there has never been any evidence whatsoever that Iraq had missiles that could reach us. The only significant danger was that Saddam might use them on a neighboring country, like Israel. There was no direct nuclear threat to us, but if Iraq had been able to make Nuclear weapons, that would have been a very bad thing, obviously.

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One of the biggest myths told is that being intelligent is the absence of the ability to do stupid things.

Agreed. But thing is we were led into war with the idea that Iraq was going to use it's WMD that they ALREADY HAD on US. That they could have them up and running at a moments notice. Thus, we were LIED to. The U.N. inspectors WERE keeping Iraq in line, and they didn't find anything not for lack of trying, but because there wasn't anything to be found. The current administration had a full head of steam about going to war with Iraq that they didn't want to wait for results, nor would they have listened to them. No matter what the inspections found, we still would have done this.

I ask that you put yourself into Bush's shoes. That's it. Consider your questions as if you were the one responsible for making the decisions.

I'm saying that we didn't know what kind of threat Iraq was because of a number of factors. The short list is:

1). Non conformance to the cease-fire agreement
2). Demilitarization of the US under Clinton
3). De-classification and/or reductions in US intelligence.

Without proper intelligence and co-operation it is impossible to guage the level of threat.

That leads to the decision. Clinton was faced with it concerning the actions of Bin Laden. He chose to ignore the intelligence and frankly at that time no one could fault him for it. We never imagined such a small contingent could do so much damage. Bush, though, had the past on his shoulders and no concrete evidence that Iraq DIDN'T have nukes. When asked to produce evidence, Saddam was evasive and non-cooperative and hence further added to the suspicion.

I think we will find weapons over there. It may take six months (half the city is apparently in tunnels underground), but I would bet that WMD's will be found.

I hear what you're saying, and I'm not discounting it. I'm only suggesting that you're perhaps being too quick to judge.

Not completely. They did go and talk to a lot of people, i.e.: NAACP lawyer Larry Ottiger (who made the "similar surnames/d.o.b." observation about DBT's research), Dr Christopher Edley (US Civil Rights Commisioner, who said he had met with groups of disenfranchised people who'd lost out the day before). Lois Frankle (leader of Democrat opposition in "state legislature" for Palm Beach. She claims Harris "interpreted" every rule of law in GB's favour). In Miami they talked with the people doing a thorough count of all the 179, 855 votes Harris didn't want "tallied". (So only about a day or two after the election then i suppose). Harris didn't want to be interviewed. State officials apparantely "blamed" the counties for the misrepresentation in the rolls, so something happened it seems.

They had also "obtained" a copy of the contract between DBT and Jeb's lot, so they might have had contacts within the company. They held up the (or possibly another??) document procurred from DBT to show the part saying it was the companies responsibility to ascertain by "manual verification" (i.e. "telephone calls and statistical sampling"!) if the roll was correct.

Nothing hugely conclusive, but they stated their stats with much pride, and I've not read of anyone suing the bbc recently or seen a retraction. What I've given you is pretty much all there was in the half hour report. The program Newsnight is normally very thorough and takes on the big boys of british politics etc to a certain degree in interviews and investigations. It all depends on the pedigree of the reporter Greg Palast (He's an American. You can't trust 'em ).


Nah, s'just a bit of further suggestion of some sneakiness.


What, their ballots were too scruffy? (Is this how they really blocked voters? Some sort of dress code on the door? Democrats, you're too scruffy-like. No entry. - seriously tho, the accusation of wantonly swiping a load of voters off the board is a lot more serious, and less comical all round - especially if the accusation about their being more "black" voters removed is true. The only difference i could ever tell between Democrat and Republican conventions is that the Dems have all the variety. The 95% error claim from the un-named county's recount is worrying too]

Um, there seems to be far more evidence against Bush personally and the Republicans generally than there is against the unlucky "losers". His brother's departments sanctioning and ineptly running the roll for example [i.e. not checking]. Doesn't this neglect seem strange, seeing as how there is no "popular vote" in the US as you say, and Florida is vital to the whole election? [and in Britland it's even more convoluted and archaic. Many dead men have been elected to seats here too etc ] Harris was both in control of the voting proceedure as Jeb's Sectretary of State, and was GW's Co-Chair of Bush's Presidential Campaign. [Then there's the alledged 8000 names on the list given by Bush's "state officials" - of which "almost none" were correct - it's hard to believe the program could get away with claiming that if the weren't some strong evidence. i.e they do say that "local officials raised a ruckus" and DBT issued a new list [still with lots of errors, allegedly]

Papa Bush's connections might well still make him a player. The Cheneys and the Rumsfleds et all are still there as Monkeypunch says [Loonies! Nutbars! Look at... http://www.newamericancentury.org/ If anyone else announced this we'd be passing resolutions to remove their WMDs immediately! Compassionate conservatives my bum ] The Bush's are influential (not good enough on it's own, but with other, like minded players....if you're prepared to be the middle man...Wink, wink. Know what i mean? Let Enron have your ear, all your problems disappear, in Geeeooorge's world..sing with me! In fact, first let us pause and remember, that big ruddy faced coal-baron, who beamed out of british tv's about three days after Bush's [please pause while i laugh myself stupid]..Ecological-style announcement. Forget the Alaska threat (has that even started getting under way?? - see, you forget about so much home policy when this flapping around over'seas is dominating the news ) It was the huge increase in coal power stations that took me aback - and how this smug bastard was bragging about how he had bush's ear, and how all he had to do was donate/lobby a bit etc. That tarnishes the old image somewhat, eh, what? Makes one seem a bit of a bounder. A bit of a tart, somewhat. Not what you think? Shame, shame.

The Bush's must now be recognised as the dynasty they are. They have reached their divinity with GWB swooping on invisible WMD's, while not "losing" out to that Saddam tease. He is King George the Second, may his lineage...be too small to reach a microphone.

I reckon the valiant president's armour needs some spit and polish. Even tho these aren't entirely sourced stats in some cases, there do seem to be more reasons to suspect the Reps than the Dems.

P.S. Bushy looked veeeery insecure (and desperately happy to have found a turn of phrase that wasn't a lie) when finally asked about the validity of WMD information, by one of his own press corp. Rumsfeld was iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinfinitely smoother when he just repeated how he "believed" the "intelligence" was all true, tho of course some would always turn out to be false, blah de blah etc to a british jorno. Tony Blair's main advisor has been spinning so fast over here the last few weeks that with any luck he might ignite from the friction soon. Some of the info they put out included a plaguerised 12 year old phd thesis easily found on the web. How inept is that??? And they've only apologised in a mumbly kind of way, once, very briefly, and then continued banging on about how the rest of it was almost certainly true (they were sure, they felt, etc etc)

And the Niger info was put down to your good friends the british too in that big senate (?) speech Bush made recently. Despite the fact that it's now being claimed that the US knew 6 months before they put it forward that the evidence in question, of uranium trading, was forged. (our mr spin here recently seemed to claim that the source was british intelligence, but now claims he claimed that the intelligence was all "third-party" info, but co-ordinated by british intelligence (he just mumbled that bit of the sentence, that's all.)

What i'm saying is - nonsense is afoot. Do you see bush as un-be-smeared with tar or soot?

Iraq weapons 'unlikely to be found'

Rumsfeld brushes aside WMD threats

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.