-Caveat Lector- >CHICAGO TRIBUNE > >HMMM, SAY WE WERE IN CHINA > >By Lee Feigon. > >(Lee Feigon is a professor of Chinese history at Colby College.) >December 8, 2000 > >As a sinologist I can't help but think that if the events of election >eve had transpired not in the United States but in a place like China, >voters and TV viewers would not have been surprised by the results. As >confusing as things might appear to Americans, the explanation would >have seemed obvious to anyone used to a more authoritarian tradition >of leaders: The Bush family rigged the results. > >Consider the family's background. George W. Bush's father is not just >the former president of the United States but also the one-time head >of the CIA. As secretary of defense in Bush's administration, Dick >Cheney was responsible for the National Security Agency, a spook >organization more powerful than the Central Intelligence Agency. Jeb >Bush, the Republican candidate's brother and governor of Florida, >spent years living and working in South America, where elections >routinely have been manipulated by American-trained operatives. > >Now remember what happened on the evening of the election. Every >television network called Florida for Gore about 8 p.m. The Bush camp >quickly protested, arguing the returns from absentee ballots and rural >counties might yet be different from what the networks had declared. >Jeb Bush, we were told, was on the phone with Florida desperately >trying to find extra votes. > >Many of us wondered: "What was Jeb Bush doing? The votes have already >been cast." > >Then the votes the Bush people had predicted suddenly began to appear. >By 2 a.m., the networks were calling the election for Bush. In a twist >that many Chinese might be able to appreciate, this result was also >not to remain in place for long. If clever operatives had fiddled with >the election returns they would want the predictions to change back >and forth a few times so it would look like the problem had been >caused by the experts at the networks not by someone playing with the >results? The focus on uncounted and difficult to use ballots in Palm >Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward Counties would be the perfect >smokescreen to keep the attention off chicanery elsewhere in the >state. Couldn't this explain why the Bush side didn't want to accept >Vice President Al Gore's offer of a statewide recount, even when >it appeared in their interest to do so? > >"Nah," I think. "These kind of things don't happen in America." > >But the sinologist voice in the back of my head keeps working. If this >were China I would look for indications that the family had used their >spook connections to manipulate other events. Didn't someone do a >pretty good job covering up George W. Bush's absenteeism from his >National Guard duty? For years the record of his drunk-driving >conviction remained suppressed. He even got out of the rehab program >everyone convicted of drunk driving in the state of Maine was supposed >to attend. > >There's also that supposedly determinative first presidential debate. >Shortly before this debate, videotapes of George W.'s preparation >sessions suddenly arrived in the office of Gore's debate coach. Rather >than run the risk of appearing tainted, the coach removed himself from >Gore's debate preparations. Gore's performance suffered. The story was >that a disaffected worker in the Bush camp probably sent the tapes, >but the person still hasn't been found. > >All this doesn't add up to a hill of beans. This isn't China. Only >someone like me would even think about how after the elder George Bush >lived in China in the 1970s, he restarted a previously dead-end >political career. Even I won't make anything of the fact that not long >after that his once good for nothing elder son made a fortune, got >elected governor and then became a candidate for the presidency. It's >a good thing we don't live in some country where all this would be >looked on with suspicion. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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