Investigate the Vote

There are some major charges zipping around the Internet, of major GOPer malfeasance in multiple kinds of vote fraud and voter suppression, in charges made by an unidentified and unconfirmed RNC employee, and an indentified man in Florida with specific charges of soliciting ways to con the computerized voting system in Florida, made, he said, by a FLA Member of Congress of GOPer persuasion.

But all that is in the realm of let's see how it plays out. What's happening now is that the Ohio vote is now official, and Bush still leads but by approximately 20,000 fewer votes. (It's now about 119,000.) So now the official recount can begin, and it's going to.

Meanwhile there are stirrings in Washington: Congressman John Conyers is holding what would be congressional hearings to investigate the vote, if the Democrats had a majority, which they don't. And current DNC chair Terry Mc is committing the Democratic party to support investigating the 2004 election, with all necessary funding. The details are here in the Keith Olbermann blog, which is essentially his script on the subject for last night's show.

MSNBC -

In this connection, I'll impart a thought that I awoke with today. It's not exactly the strangest dream, but it did come out of that land of sleep thought. I woke up thinking of Nixon.

I woke up thinking of 1973, less than a year after Nixon's re-election. The first stories on Watergate had been published before the November election, but Americans choose to ignore them, and really did give Tricky a mandate---to the tune of 49 out of 50 states. (Hence the bumper sticker I pasted onto my guitar case which read: "Don't Blame Me, I'm From Massachusetts.") But after his re-inaugural, and in all his imperial presidential glory, the whole sorry mess started unraveling and by 1974, he and his entire administration were gone in disgrace.

So I wonder what we will be waking up to in 2005 and 2006.