Mike's Blog

Equivocating between the Ukraine fiasco and the 2000 US election is shameful. Our country is the model for democracy throughout the world; our electoral system is the embodiment of free and fair & continually striving to improve.

If you believe the US Secretary of State should give his blessing to the severely flawed Ukraine election you are either misinformed or deluded. Virtually everyone whose last name is not Yanukovych or Putin acknowledges the election did not reflect the will of the Ukrainian people - the Ukraine Parliament voted on Saturday to declare the election illegitimate and "falsified".

In the Ukraine, censorship of the state run media has prevented coverage of election flaws and reporting on pro-Yushchenko protests. This is not concurrent with a democratic state. Fortunately last Thursday, the TV Network's president conceded to an employee strike to allow the network to finally "tell the truth". today's WSJ, column 4:

"Many people, especially out East and South, were like zombies - they had no idea about what's going on in Ukraine, they didn't know about the protests in Kiev, about how peaceful it all is, about how not a single shop window was broken here in these days," says Mr. Drabok. (a network correspondent who was barred from appearing on air after criticizing censorship last month)

I'm proud to live in a country where even the most irreverent of people are free to bitch about whatever nonsense they like. And, on an unrelated note, I enjoy your blog.

Cam, your first task is to look up the word "equivocating." Write an esssay on its proper use - I'll post it on the blog. Second, enter "Florida, Election, Fraud" into a search engine and tell me what comes up. Only an ignorant or dishonest reading of the 2000 election could be interpreted as "free and fair." For more terms, enter "felon list" (2000 and 2004) or perhaps, simply "Katherine Harris." It's not so much her stunning incompetence, willingness to break laws, or brazen disregard that gets me as much as the fact that she was co-chair of Bush's 2000 Florida election committee. Wait, actually, all of those things bug me.

Check out what Jimmy Carter had to say about the 2004 election in September. It wasn't exactly a ringing endorsment for democracy. Or perhaps you prefer the BBC, which proclaimed the 2004 election "mostly free and fair." Is "mostly free and fair" the new gold standard at which we're aiming? Then we have the Cleveland Plain Dealer with a story this weekend about voting irregularities in Cuyahoga County.

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/110155142862570.xml

There are dozens of other stories out there. Of course, none of this will affect you as long as you keep that flag tightly wound across your eyes. High-five Uncle Sam for me.

Yeah, there were problems in the 2000 election in Florida - nowhere near Venezuelan or Ukrainian problems. As far as 2004 goes, let me remind you Jimmy Carter gave his stamp of approval to Chavez in Venezuela before turning around and lambasting Florida. That's more comical than credible. I trust the BBC more - if "mostly free and fair" is more than 99% free and fair, then yes, I'd say that's a start. That language may not be a ringing endorsement but it's hardly an indictment either.

In 2000, the felon list was a problem. The butterfly ballot was a problem. The election being called early by the networks and prompting many Panhandle voters to not bother voting was a problem. Blame the Florida election committee for the first two, and overzealous journalism for the third. These mistakes get magnified when elections are that close. But somebody has to win - they went through a process and determined the winner. The results were certified by Harris, upheld by the Supreme Court, and later verified by news organizations including the NYTimes. Gore conceded. Bush became president. I'm not asking you to like that, but I don't see the good in continuing to undermine the legitimacy of the executive office.

As a New Yorker, there's not so much I can do to reform the Floridian electoral system. That was up to officials in Florida, and by most indications (discounting Carter) they improved from four years ago. Ohio was a mess this year. The thousands of phantom Bush votes from one of the new electronic systems is very serious - I'll reserve judgment on the Cuyahoga provisional ballots until they determine how many of the 8,000 were indeed improperly discounted. I'd like seeing the "dozens of other stories out there." I've heard of three so far & I'm interested in reading about the rest of them.

Despite all this, I repeat, America is the best example of modern Democracy in action. While all electoral problems are serious, none we encountered were enough to approach discrediting the legitimacy of our electoral process - we had thousands of lawyers and watchdog reps at the polls making sure of this. The system isn't always pretty, but it works and it's getting better (largely because of people like you, Mike). I'm going to go ahead and guess that you're so angry about the election problems because you care deeply about our country. I respect that. And that's why I bother writing here at all, even though it seems my viewpoint isn't highly regarded.

What's going on in Ukraine is immensely serious to the future of democracy in Eastern Europe. The antidote to "terrorism" is through reform of oppressive societies, ending personal desperation, providing opportunities and purpose for people who would otherwise blame America for their lack of the aforementioned. There is huge support for Yushchenko in Ukraine right now, a leader that will open the country to the West rather than align it with the Kremlin. If Yushchenko won, that would likely be good for the world and good for Ukraine - but that's for Ukrainians to decide, something that was not allowed to happen in the first election. (Yushchenko has even been poisoned.) President Kuchma has agreed to hold a new vote, so there is hope that things will go better the second time around.

Suggesting Ukraine election problems are on par to those in the United States is shrugging off the seriousness of a major current event. That is an equivocation - an intentional ambiguity that distorts the truth. I concede, I didn't use the word appropriately in my first post. I make mistakes - but only because this damn flag bandana I'm wearing is restricting my circulation.

Ukraine is not weak. Ukraine is STRONG!