By Mark Goldblatt on 8.25.03 @ 12:02AM
Paranoia is becoming something of a mantra among Democrats.
The recall initiative in California, according to Governor Gray
Davis, "is part of an ongoing national effort by Republicans to
steal elections they cannot win." Davis told supporters that the
Republicans' power grab started with their attempt to impeach
President Clinton in 1998 and continued during the presidential
election in Florida in 2000 where Republicans "stopped the vote
count, depriving thousands of Americans of the right to vote."
"Now," Davis explained, "they want to seize control of California
just before the next presidential election,"
Indeed, paranoia of this sort is becoming something of a mantra
among Democrats. Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic
National Committee, has charged that the White House is secretly
behind the California recall movement, adding, "The national
Republican strategy of stealing elections through lawyers,
loopholes and lies will backfire." The actor Martin Sheen recently
told the television show Access Hollywood that "the
California recall is an effort to grab the state for the
Republicans. I suspect this came out of the White House. Frankly,
it makes perfect sense after Florida." Al Sharpton, always good for
a pithy turn of phrase, has characterized Republican tactics as:
"Let's do it again until I win."
Setting aside the fact that many prominent Republicans have come
out against the recall proceedings in California, such revisionism
is equal parts Hillary Clinton paranoia and Al Franken fudging. So
let's go over the pertinent history one more time, slowly:
1) President Clinton was impeached because he lied under oath
(which he did, beyond a shadow of a doubt) and obstructed justice
(which he did, beyond a reasonable doubt). He was in the end not
removed from office only because Senate Democrats -- either out of
conscience, because they did not feel Clinton's transgressions
amounted to high crimes or misdemeanors, or out of dogged loyalty
-- ignored the evidence and voted along strict party lines to
acquit him.
2) Al Gore's Democratic supporters went to court during the
Florida election fiasco of 2002 in an attempt to count voter errors
-- ballots on which would-be voters failed to follow explicit
instructions and punch through their cards cleanly -- as votes.
Incredibly, the state's Supreme Court ruled in their favor; the
United States Supreme Court was forced to step in, on admittedly
shaky Constitutional grounds, to halt the mischief.
Whatever your opinion about the California recall -- I argued
against it in a column for the New York Post several weeks
ago -- its cause is clearly Davis's own bumbling incompetence. That
he and his supporters would distort the recent past to drum up
sympathy is further evidence of his unfitness for public office,
and of their partisan desperation to cling to power.
Mark Goldblatt's novel, Africa Speaks, is
available in paperback (E-mail: Mgold57@aol.com).
topics:
Hillary Clinton, Television, Hollywood, Constitution, Law, Supreme Court, Africa
