Had enough Sarah Palin bashing? I haven't. The woman's a mess. And I'm here to provide you with some information that you probably won't hear on Keith Olbermann tonight.
It has to do with Sarah Palin's support of (her words) "free and fair elections." Just tonight, though, I've seen two things to prove what her party has been doing to undermine that noble dream of hers.
BONUS: Amy Goodman!
NUMBER ONE: KICKING THE LIBERTARIANS OFF OF THE BALLOT
Fearing the "spoiler effect," seven Republican lawyers got to work this year in my home state of Pennsylvania to kick Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr of off the ballot. Not very democratic of the party of Sarah Palin. Wouldn't free and fair elections mean the inclusion of all candidates?
Nevermind reality. In a recent interviewPalin said:
Berger: Do you think ACORN's actions are unamerican?
"I believe OH! well I believe that anybody that would try to thwart a fair and clean election is not following American principals because part of being an American is protecting and being able to rely on free and fair elections."
Nevermind the GOP's failed attempts to take Bob Barr off of the ballot. Maybe if they had put as much effort into "free and fair elections" as they did stopping them, we wouldn't have to kick them out of Congress and the White House this November.
MORE IMPORTANTLY, NUMBER TWO: THE REAL FRAUD IN THIS ELECTION
It is ironic that Sarah Palin was answering a question about ACORN and voter fraud when she said this thing about "free and fair elections." Because the truth is that there were only about two dozen cases of voter fraud in the entire country since the 2004 election. Not the kind of thing that compromises our republic, Ms. Palin.
But there is rampant voter suppression. And it's been legislated by Republicans on behalf of people like Sarah Palin. And it was passed out of fear of "voter fraud" (nonexistent, remember?). And it has the potential to swing elections (for reference, see 2000 and 2004).
A few clips of today's episode of Democracy Now! with the author of a book about how "the right stole the 2000 and 2004 elections":
And read:
AMY GOODMAN: What are your concerns right now, Mark?
MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, you’ve referred to a couple of them already. We now see a burst of vote flipping by machines, electronic voting machines in a couple of states. This is something that we saw in at least eleven states in the 2004 election, hundreds and hundreds of people coming forward to say, "I pushed the button for Kerry, and the button for Bush lit up." So, clearly, this was a systematic programming decision by the people in charge of the machines, which in that case and this one is the Republican Party. We’re also seeing systematic shortages of working voting machines in Democratic precincts only. This is also something that did not happen only in Ohio in 2004, but happened nationwide. That election was, in fact, stolen.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you know that?
MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Well, I know because there’s been an audit of the vote in eighteen counties of Ohio by a researcher named Richard Hayes Phillips, who had his team literally scrutinize every single ballot that was warehoused in eighteen Ohio counties. They took over 30,000 digital photographs. This is not speculation, Amy. This is a meticulous, careful, specific and conclusive demonstration that John Kerry actually won some 200,000 votes in those eighteen counties only that were taken away from him. Bush’s official victory margin, you may recall, was about 118,000. So there is no question about it. Ohio was stolen.
And:
AMY GOODMAN: You talked to John Kerry.
MARK CRISPIN MILLER: I talked to John Kerry. In fact, the last time I was with you, I was here to talk about that conversation with him. On October 28th, 2005, we met. I gave him a copy of my book Fooled Again, and we discussed the last election, and he told me, with some vehemence, that he believed it was stolen.
Read the full transcript here.
The hypocrisy of Sarah Palin stretches beyond the fact that it makes her an easy target. Her ignorance of what is going on around her - or her lies about it - make her a dangerous person. If "free and fair" means "stolen and rigged" in her book, then a Sarah Palin vice presidency would be a repeat of Dick Cheney, and her presidency would be a repeat of Bush.