The good guys are winning

I'm not going to let the idiots at DU get me down.
Tomorrow, my finger will be blue. Someitme next week, I'll be wearing orange. These are the colors of revolution, the colors of freedom, baby! Afghanistan, the Ukraine, Iraq. Bush won reelection despite Dems' cheating in Wisconsin, Washington, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, and God knows where else. There's hope for Dino Rossi in Washington. The Orange Revolution is spreading to Communist Belarus and Saudia Arabia and Syria have been captivated by the elections in Iraq.

Freedom is winning in a landslide, it's rushing like a river through the mountains and deserts of foreign lands. I'm trying to remember some of MLK's "Ihave a dream" speech because the imagery fits so well, but I'm too excited to look it up right now. It's that verse in Matthew, and then Galatians -- the kingdom of God is violently advancing, and the violent will take it by force. It is for freedom Christ has set us free. As Bush said, freedom is the Almighty's gift to mankind. And this all seems like it's happened in a day, in an hour!

The good guys are winning.

WTF moment at Democratic Underground

ShinerTX at the Democratic Underground apparently got sick this morning watching the "turnout" from the "Iraqi" "election" which was allegedly "held."

The Iraq vote is making me sick this morning.

All the media keeps talking about is how happy the Iraqis are, how high turnout was, and how "freedom" has spread to Iraq. I had to turn off CNN because they kept focusing on the so-called "voters" and barely mentioned the resistance movements at all. Where are the freedom fighters today? Are their voices silenced because some American puppets cast a few ballots?

I can't believe the Iraqis are buying into this "democracy" bullshit. They have to know that the Americans don't want them to have power, because they know that Bush is in this for the oil, and now that he finally has it he's not going to let it go. This election is a charade. The fact is that the Iraqis have suffered during the past two years more than any people on earth at the hands of the American gestapo. Maybe they're afraid and felt they had to vote. That's the only way I can explain it to myself.

Stupid things like "freedom," "democracy," "voting," and anything lese "positive" needed "scare quotes" so we'd know how scary and ridiculous they are.

Of course, ShinerTX was in good company. asjr was so sick of the media-whoring positive Iraq coverage on MSNBC he had to turn off the TV. And CNN? Hasn't been able to watch that neoconservative Republican schill in ages. Power to him! earthside gives him a shout-out: "Hey, good move to turn off CNN ...As you would expect Aljazeera reports very differently than the Bush-cheerleading, corporate "news" media."

But my favorite post was from EDT:

Where are the freedom fighters today? Maybe you can find an address and send them some money, or at least a sack of nails to build a suicide bomb and kill some of those damned voters!

Although thebigidea protested ("maybe we can make dumb posts trying to make DUers look like [sic] terraists. that's the ticket!"), ShinerTX defended this "freedom" of "speech":

That kind of rhetoric [ed.: thebigidea's?] isn't helpful.

There are people who are fighting the richest and strongest army in the world with whatever they can scrape up in the streets. They fight against all odds to preserve the integrity of their country from an occupying force. What is not to admire and respect about that?

Do they make mistakes? I'm sure they do. Do innocent people get hurt? Probably. But blame it on the occupying force who started this war, not the people trying to protest their homeland.

For the love of God, will these people take a deep breath already? When al-Zarqawi feeds them talking points and al-Jazeera is their reliable news source -- does it occur to any of these people that they have had a serious break with reality? They're praying (first time some of them have hit their knees before, I bet) that the insurgents win these elections or at least step up their efforts to run out the Americans (oops, sorry, *'s) by slaughtering their own people even more. Oh, and that would be the rise of the freedom fighters, not those dang freedom insurgents ScrappleFace warned about).

And to attack the minor point (no stone left unturned here!) -- since when are CNN and MSNBC conservative? In any capacity? I could stomach a few minutes of CNN this morning, and it was like they were watching a Kennedy funeral. They were sad-faced and disparaging reports of high voter turnout and already saying the election probably won't have credibility with the Iraqis (those would be the "Iraqi" "voters" that EDT wanted to kill for betraying Allah.)

Seriously, these people need to pop a Valium or take some hits off their Nader bong and reconnect with the real world. Where voting is a good thing and blowing up one's own people is frowned on.

Marching freedom

Roger Simon is live-blogging the Iraqi elections, mainly from CNN and Fox coverage. Iraq the Model is currently silent, but his previous posts are good enough for now.

I was reading President's second inaugural, which I'll comment more on tomorrow, but there has been a lot of pessismism and fear swinging from the right (Noonan, Buckley) and the left (everyone on TV). One of my favorite lines from Reagan was during his first campaign, when he said you should never underestimate the greatness of America or the greatness of the American people. We are the last best hope of freedom in a dying world, and that is Reagan's truest legacy adn the one that Bush II has grasped at a time when history needed a leader. We are seeing it this hour in Iraq, from Tikrit to Sadr City.

This is not an abandonment of conservatism's caution. We didn't act until the need arose, and that kind of restraint is vital when a country has our measure of strength. But now that we have this job to do

[our] most solemn duty is to protect this nation and its people against further attacks and emerging threats. Some have unwisely chosen to test America's resolve, and have found it firm.

I'll post later about first principles and how changing tactics and changing responsibility don't change these principles; it is these principles that guide those changes in a new world. The President has a duty to defend the Constitution and preserve the safety of the country; half-measures or untenable, short-term quid pro quo can't be allowed. The path for this preservation, like our occupations of Germany and Japan after World War II, are guided by our first principles of individual freedom combined with governmental restraint.

The encouragement to the people of the world that President Bush spoke of at his inauguration has already had a dramatic effect in the Ukraine, a triumph of mankind's right to choose and command its government. "When in the course of human events..." and all that. With just a nod of encouragement, the United States fostered a revolution, a Bloodless Revolution, and a Glorious Revolution, that will spread. The same thing happened in Afghanistan; it is happening at this very hour in Iraq.

We are witnessing the march of freedom throughout the world. We are the standard bearers of it. If God is merciful, then we may be witnessing the beginning of our own diminishment, as freedom and prosperity and dignity become the property of more than a select Western elite and defended by more hands than one strong country and a sea of debauched, socialist prodigals.

I like this part, so I'll close with it, from the inaugural last week:

You have seen duty and allegiance in the determined faces of our soldiers. You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs. Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself - and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country, but to its character.

America has need of idealism and courage, because we have essential work at home - the unfinished work of American freedom. In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty.

Boxer Cried

Yep, the brave and true Sen. Barbara Boxer cried as President Bush was ceritifed. Pix on Drudge.

Good Lord.

WTF in Washington

Pardon the French, but there's not other expression that works. Words fail here.

Everyone knows (or should know) about the 5,000 votes that miraculously cropped up in King County Washington in the governor's election, which, combined with 1,500 votes they lost, tipped the election to Democratic state attorney general Christine Gregoire by 128 votes.

Although, like ye olde Chicago, it appears some of those voting were not so much alive as they were dead. Long dead, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer today (Hat tip, the Kerry Spot/TKS).

At least two of the eight came from people who filled out, signed, and mailed in ballots for dead spouses. One woman, Doris McFarland, said she called "the elections board and said, 'Can I do it because he wanted me to vote?' ... The person ... said, 'Well, who would know?' I said, 'I don't want to do anything that is wrong.'" Another man, Bob Holmgren, said he voted on behalf of his late wife because she hated Gregoire so much.

(An observation: This is the only one of the eight people the Post-Intelligencer says they found where they said whom the fake vote was for. How 'bout the other seven? MacFarland, whom they quoted three separate times--did they bother to ask whom she voted for? Or or is the only real concern here that it's probably Republicans cheating? Darn Republicans.)

Or take the fascinating case of Mary Coffey:

"'She couldn't have (voted). She died on Sept. 29,' said her husband, Michael Coffey. He added that he voted by mail, but destroyed his wife's ballot when it arrived in the mail."

As the story dutifully points out, these complaints about the zombie votes are only cropping up now, way after the ink is dried on the secretary of state's cerification, because "Republicans are searching for ways to contest the election and force a revote." I say again -- darn Republicans!

But this doesn't concern the Democratic party. Because this election as been....wait for it...examined. Examined closely. That's how we know they have filtered out the 1,500 impure votes, found 5,000+ more pure ones to take their place, and then counted all the pure votes so they can have the examined winner, Gregoire.

Kirstin Brost, spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party, said, "We're very satisfied with the results of this election. It's the most closely examined election in our state's history."

Yep, that's an honest election for you. And an examined one. As legitimate and examined as Venezuela's, only without Carter's gravitas. Democrats don't lose, right, so if you count and recount and count again to get the Democrat to win, that's democracy at work. Or, as Edward G. Robinson said in Key Largo, you count and keep counting till it comes out right.

But the really money quote comes from the kingpin himself:

"These are not indications of fraud," said Bill Huennekens, King County's elections supervisor. "Fraud is a concerted effort to change an election."

Did you catch that? Fraud is an attempt to change the outcome of an election. This just brought to light the cosmic destiny of Gregoire ascending to the governor's mansion. Totally not the same thing as changing the outcome of an election, which would be fraud. It's more like setting the outcome of the election to rights. But, should fraud erupt in public on a sunny day, then that will totally be investigated, officials swear on a stack of non-religious texts.

There are a number of questions that crop up after this report.

1. What does it take to constitute voter fraud in Washington? A Republican winning?

2. What is the party affiliation of Brian I've-Never-Heard'of-Fraud-Before Huennekens, the King County elections official?

3. How, if these eight people were dead BEFORE the absentee ballots were sent (as the story specifies; only three are named there), could four of the signatures on the ballots be a positive match, as Huennekens says? I think death trumps these oh-so-competent public servants' good word.

4. Where did Mary Coffey's vote come from?

To review the article:

* Doris MacFarland voted on her husband's absentee ballot AND HER OWN after he was dead.

* She got the okay from an elections official in Huennekens office to do this first (but he says he can't imagine someone in his office saying this).

* Bob Holmgren voted for his dead wife on her ballot and then voted for himself.

* Fifty documented felons without the right to vote voted in Pierce County.

* And my personal favorite, which proves there was no fraud, Mary Coffey voted, despite the fact she was dead AND her husband (rightly) destroyed her ballot.

* Five other people in King County who died BEFORE THE ABSENTEE BALLOTS WERE MAILED, voted absentee. These were just discovered by the Post-Intelligencer; apparently, the actual board of elections could be bothered with, you know, maintaining voters rolls and counting legal votes.

Umm, does anyone think that maybe, just maybe, this constitutes fraud?