In a way, Clinton agrees with us that say it doesn't matter who we, Mr./
Ms. Average Voter, vote for in the US elections.      They'll pick who
they want.     I'm glad that was cleared up.

Tony
________________________________
A passing comment from Clinton: the US election was stolen
By Kate Randall
13 January 2001
WSWS

Speaking on Tuesday in Chicago, Bill Clinton made a remarkable statement
for an outgoing president. In an off-the-cuff comment during a speech to
Democratic Party supporters he acknowledged that George W. Bush and the
Republicans, with the assistance of the US Supreme Court, stole the
presidential election.

"By the time it was over," Clinton said, "our candidate had won the
popular vote, and the only way they could win the election was to stop
the voting in Florida." Speaking to reporters following the event he
added that the Democrats "ran the first presidential campaign that was
so clearly winning, a court had to stop the vote in order to change the
outcome."

Clinton's comments warranted only a 30-second clip on a few evening news
programs, and have received scant attention in the print media, because
he raised an issue that journalists and the political elite would just
as soon sweep under the rug. While Clinton may have let the truth slip
out, the actual response of the Democrats to the Republicans' political
coup has been to submit to it.

Indeed, since the Supreme Court handed the presidency to Bush the
watchwords of the Democratic Party have been bipartisanship and
reconciliation.

The record of the Clinton administration from Election Day through to
the present has been to block any fight against the Republicans'
hijacking of the presidency. Clinton remained silent throughout much of
the post-election crisis, commenting that democracy and the "rule of
law" would win out. The Clinton Justice Department also refused to
launch an investigation requested by the NAACP and other organizations
into the disenfranchisement of minority voters in Florida.

When the Supreme Court called off the vote count in Florida—handing
the presidency to Bush—Clinton was one of the first to accept the
outcome of the election as legitimate, the product of the democratic
process and the Constitution. He invited Bush to the White House to
discuss a "smooth" transition to power.
No Democratic Senator—including the newly elected Senator from New
York, Hillary Rodham Clinton—supported a motion initiated by members
of the Congressional Black Caucus objecting to the awarding of Florida's
25 electoral votes to Bush. In the spirit of bipartisanship, the
Democratic Party leadership has abandoned any challenge to the Florida
vote fraud and has no plans to protest the Bush inauguration on January
20.

The contradiction between Clinton's acknowledgment that the election was
stolen and the response of his administration only underscores the
cynicism and cowardice of the Democratic Party and its cavalier attitude
towards the basic rights of the American people. This disinterest in
fundamental rights, which were won through bitter struggle over many
generations, is likewise reflected in Clinton's failure to provide any
analysis of what is, by any definition, a crisis of immense proportions.

If it is true, as Clinton admits, that his successor is assuming office
as a result of the disenfranchisement of millions of voters, how is this
to be explained? What does this break with democratic norms indicate
about the state of bourgeois democratic institutions in the US? What are
the underlying social and class contradictions that have given rise to
this unprecedented development? What does the breakdown of democratic
procedures say about the nature of the much-vaunted prosperity for which
Clinton and Gore are eager to take credit? Does this development not
have a connection to the staggering growth of inequality which is, in
fact, the major legacy of the Clinton years? These are questions the
Democrats and liberal establishment would rather ignore.

The half-joking manner in which Clinton made his comments on the
election is indicative of the lack of seriousness that dominates the
political and media establishment. To raise these issues in such a
cynical fashion—and then draw no conclusions from them or act upon
them—reveals not only the attitude of Bill Clinton as an individual
but the entire social layer for which he and the Democratic Party speak.
This reflects the outlook not of the broad mass of working people, but
rather the most privileged layers of the middle class and sections of
the ruling class who have little if any commitment to the defense of
democratic rights.

This is not the first time the Democrats have alluded to such issues,
only to bury them. Clinton's statements in Chicago were reminiscent of
Hillary Clinton's comments at the onset of the impeachment crisis, when
she said that the campaign by the Republican right against Clinton
amounted to a "vast right-wing conspiracy." No sooner had she spoken the
words than any further examination of the impeachment drive was dropped.

The response from the Bush camp to Clinton's statements was notably
subdued. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer commented that he hoped that
President Clinton would want to follow in the tradition "of presidents
leaving office with respect for their successors."

Fleischer went out of his way not to make too much of it, conscious of
the explosive nature of the issues involved.

It is noteworthy that the New York Times, mouthpiece of the liberal wing
of the political establishment, was far less restrained in its reaction.
Like Fleischer, the Times was anxious to bury the issue on its inside
pages. At the same time, they could not resist denouncing Clinton for
having raised it. In the first paragraph of what was purportedly a news
report on the Chicago event, Clinton was attacked as a "partisan
provocateur" for even suggesting that the election had been stolen.