"But the biggest clue about what they were up to came in 2000 with the Florida recount."

[ProSense]

Machiavelli's Inbred Children

by digby

<…>

But the biggest clue about what they were up to came in 2000 with the Florida recount. I know it seems like ancient history to go back to that but it is extremely important to remember just how outrageous their tactics were: the Gore campaign used legal tactics and the Bush campaign didn't…

The Republicans have been remarkably good about keeping their mouths shut about the Florida shennanigans, pretending that Jeb Bush's electoral apparatus gave them no unusual help. Still, I was surprised to see a former Florida recount icon show up on the Lehrer News Hour last week to argue that the US Attorney firings were completely above board. His name is Michael Carvin and he was the lawyer who argued the Bush case before the Florida Supreme Court. Here's his picture. I'm sure many of you will remember him:


The Newshour failed to identify him as one of the Florida recount team and instead named him merely as a former Reagan official. But he didn't fail to carry the Bush water one more time:
MICHAEL CARVIN: I really think this is much ado about very little. I'm not saying that they haven't mishandled this from a public relations perspective. They clearly have…

<…>

This would be typical Carvin. For instance, here's something he said after Bush v Gore was decided:

The new deadline for all recounts to be submitted to Katherine Harris was 5 p.m. Sunday, November 26. Now, that Sunday afternoon you could watch any of the television coverage and see that Palm Beach was still counting. And by late afternoon you heard various officials in Palm Beach acknowledging that they were not going to be finished by five. Now, we maintain that was completely illegal, because the law said you had to manually recount all ballots. Village Voice top five outrages for why this is such a slimy position for him to take.

<…>

They were clearly colluding with Katherine Harris' office throughout and they determined that she could reject all of the Palm Beach county votes they had counted by 5pm with this little gambit. Everything depended on not allowing Al Gore to ever take the lead or their whole PR campaign would start to fall apart.

It's a small thing, I know, and probably one of thousands of such small acts of illegal and inappropriate collusion between Jeb Bush and the campaign during the recount. But it happened and we knew it happened. And it was done by people like Michael Carvin, former Reagan Justice Department official who now implies that the US Attorney scandal is nothing because everyone knows that the Bush Justice department is an enforcement arm of the Republican Party and that's perfectly normal.

more

[porphyrian]

1. Anyone who hasn't yet needs to watch Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0346091/

[Generator]

2. They are a bunch of bullies

That's all they've ever been. Petty thugs, corpulent, balding, and filled with rage that the rich white man doesn't have it all. Because BY GOD, GOD says HE should. And if he doesn't, he will take it. No conscience, no morality, just petty frat boy thugs. That's all Bush and Rove are. And that Kyle Sampson reminded me of ROVE! He's balding, corpulant, and looks like a younger version of Rove. (When I remember the bullies waiting outside to stop the ballot counting, that's what I remember, overfed white men that look like frat boy assholes)

Cheney, however, is another level of evil. Without Cheney maybe they would have never got this far.

[blossomstar]

6. and they are all a sickening pasty white color!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. There's a picture here.

Scroll down.

http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=181

Be sure to read this:

2005 Update: (Al Kamen, Washington Post 1/24/05) Miami 'Riot' Squad: Where Are They Now?

[Webster Green]

4. The United States Supreme W. Court..

[Merlot]

18. "...after counting was stopped by the U.S. Supreme court..."

To this day, I do not understand why those words don't send chills down every one's spine.

There it was, printed in the paper for everyone to see, and no outrage - well, except here at DU.

[grasswire]

5. okay, that makes three of the recount team working on this

McNulty. Sampson. Carvin.

Has that team been virtually installed in DoJ to do the dirty political work?

This trail must be followed.

[intheflow]

7. Wish I could recommend this multiple times.

This may be merely "one of thousands of such small acts of illegal and inappropriate collusion," but it sure does tie current events in with the past. This was a good catch, and a good connection to make.

:kick:

[loudsue]

8. This needs to be read by the general DU population...

kickin' it back up.

K & R

:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick:

[KoKo]

9. Wasn't Michael Sampson who testified yesterday also involved in

Selection 2000? The road leads backward from the USA's firings to that stolen election. Every Repug "kid" staffer, operative who was involved was rewarded with a cushy job in this Administration. If the House and Senate are diligent and work backward we will finally be able to prove that Election 2000 was stolen from Gore and that Bush/Cheney were illegitimate. Election Tampering was at one time a Federal Crime...I suppose they might have changed it by now.

[truth2power]

10. Kicking this...

And I think Jim Lehrer needs to be asked why Mr. Carvin wasn't sufficiently identified.

[gratuitous]

11. This is what happens

When you hear the wise men in the media talk about "not wallowing in the past" or that we have to "move forward" without prosecuting these criminals, this is why we should re-double our efforts. Every time, and without fail. Because Watergate wasn't tracked down to a fare-thee-well, criminals like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and their proteges survived to keep the cancer festering in our government.

Because we didn't keep after the Florida recount fiasco, miscreants like Carvin and Sampson were free to keep corrupting our process.

Let's do the job thoroughly and right this time. Every last one of them, convicted and behind bars.

[tomp]

12. absolutely! nothing less wil be satisfactory.

in fact, i want that commitment from any presidential candidate.

[myrna minx]

14. Exactly. When I heard Bill Press navel gazing about the prospect

of impeachment, my teeth nearly shattered. Unless these traitors are held to account, they they will resurface over and over doing their damage to our country. Rumsfeld, Cheney, Poindexter, Negroponte et al always return. Sheesh, indicted Tom Delay and scandal ridden Gingrich are given air time, therefore giving them some sort of legitimacy even after some of their skulduggery has come to light. They must be held to account, otherwise, quite possibly in six, eight, ten years, the likes Gonzales could be resurrected and heralded as the law and order man and a champion of the people. :eyes: Lord knows the media won't "remember" any of the past horrible deeds. The aforementioned monsters are my case in point.

[jaybeat]

16. They *have* resurfaced!

They are combat vets of Watergate and Iran-Contra, and JFK's assassination before that. Three big leaps in advancing the Imperial Executive. Each time, they commit more crimes, and fewer of them are taken down. They learn from their "mistakes." They have been slowly, carefully and relentlessly moving this country's government into becoming a fascist, criminal enterprise, at war with the citizens of the US and the rest of the world.

They steal power. They destroy enemies. They murder millions. They do not give up, give in, or stand down.

I fear, they will destroy us all.

I fear, we will not be able to stop them.

I hope that enough of us will realize what's at stake, soon enough, that we can.

:patriot: :dilemma: :nuke:

[milkyway]

15. Like an infestation of cockroaches, they'll keep coming back unless you do what

needs to be done to drive them away for good. Impeach, convict, imprison.

[gollygee]

13. "Everyone knows that the Bush Justice department is an enforcement arm of the Republican Party"

". . . and that's perfectly normal"

:(

[NewYorkerfromMass]

17. I have no shortage of outrage over sElection 2000

to be shared with whomever at anytime for the rest of my life.

[mnhtnbb]

19. And until the Dem leadership demonstrates their outrage, it will continue

to happen in other elections. Over and over again.

[byronius]

20. Man, did my hackles just go up.

That evil, evil day. What was it -- December 12th? 11th? How do you count it?

I thought to myself immediately: This Is It. This is the Millennial Big One everyone's been talking about for a thousand years now. It's December, 2000, not December 1999. Everyone's been off. It's This Thing that starts the Dark Years. So obvious. Democracy Not. Old Over-Rated Democracy, except for all the Others. Like we got now. Other. (It's down to 3 million votes an election now -- hey, improvement!)

And so I was correct. That's no fun. That picture above, of the sheriff's deputies removing ballots, and the picture of the Brooks Brothers Riot, the pictures of the lone Gore supporters being screamed and spat at by gangs of Bush Lovers, the smug Scalia, the move to take over before the decision was complete --

Time kinda stopped for me, right there. We legally stopped being a Nation of any sort, and became instead a Land of Thuggery, complete with Warlords and Henchmen and Royal Torturers. I look forward to the Restored United States, and although technically that would require Gore to serve his term, I think I would still feel healed by a Democratic President appointing several Supreme Court Justices to be approved by the now-80% Democratic Senate and Congress. A generic healing. Healing nonetheless.

Your post has moved me. Anytime I see images or words from That Day, I get the misties. I'm proud of the Democrats, especially Waxman, and we have to set things right, inexorably, implacably, innopposably.

Oh, That Day. God. It was awful.

[bobthedrummer]

21. kick