Below is a segment of the transcript of my Mark Crispin Miller interview for Clark Cast- Part 1 on Election Integrity.  There was so much good information in the interview, I didn't want anyone to miss what he had to say!  Later-- I'll be putting up the transcripts of the others as well (Dr David Dill and Senator Debra Bowen).  As this phone call to Mark was 50 minutes long -- this is only the first part!  More to come later.... after we finish editing Clark Cast Part 2...  It's extensive --  so grab a coffee, sit back, and ....  enjoy!

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MS:  We have Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Media Studies at New York University, and author of many books including “Boxed In”, “The Bush Dsylexicon”, “Cruel and Unusual”, and the one we’ll be talking about “Fooled Again; (subtitle) How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too...Unless we stop them”

 You’ve seen his writings in the New York Times and in the Nation. He’s appeared on Front Line, PBS NewsHour, Washington Journal and many more. And he’s a regular guest on Air America...otherwise known as the “Librul Media”. His book “Fooled Again” is copiously footnoted,. which I love, 60 pgs of footnotes, well researched backed up with incredible detail.-- It is jaw-dropping, mind-blowing, hair-on-fire-setting scenarios that have taken place surrounding this great democracy and its current flawed election system. You might not sleep again after reading it. If you haven’t read it, go do yourself a favor and pick it up. You can also read his blog at NewsFromUnderground at www.markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com  .

Welcome to ClarkCast Mark, and thanks making time to talk to us.

 
MM: My pleasure, thanks for having me on.

 
MS:  Sure.  I’d like to start by pronouncing you the King of 'dirty tricks discoveries and disclosures'! 

MM: (laugh) --That’s why I make the big money.--

MS:  That’s why!  You are, you’re like the Daniel Ellsberg of the underworld of elections— and there is an underworld as there is in any high stakes venture.  I’d like to set the tone with a little quote here from some well known extremists and conspiracists...Uh, Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker.  They co-chaired a 2005 commission and warned, quote, “Software can be modified maliciously before being installed into individual voting machines.  There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries”   Comment on that?

MM:  Yes, well, that’s an inarguable point it seems to me.  Now let’s be clear that election fraud can be and has been carried out through all sorts of technology and customs. The use of paper ballots per se is not any kind of insurance against election fraud, obviously.  Which has been used on both sides.... The real problem with computerized voting machines is that they allow technicians to enable vote theft, and to do so undetectably. That’s the problem.  I believe that computerized machines are far too complicated and far too easily hacked, easily rigged to be used in any society that likes to consider itself a democracy.

 A "RADICAL AGENDA" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MS:  Yes. We have a long roster of problems with the election industry, and it’s gotten so bad, we now have citizens running around in about a dozen states resorting to mounting lawsuits just to try to get their votes counted. because at least an attorney will pay attention to them.  It seems the election problems we have today are kind of microcosmic of current themes of governmental problems that we have.  These are just a few observations I’m going to rattle off for you here and ask you to comment on.  Corruption, cronyism, excessive secrecy, corporate control, loss of checks and balances, lack of transparency, powers vested in the hands of the controlling few usurped from the hands of the people.  I mean, if Tom Ridge was coding this we would be bright red on our elections.  You have said, Mark, that you view this particular situation as a “danger to the republic”.. I’d like you to talk about the threats as you see them      and go through your list.

MM:  --Yes, the real threat posed by election fraud is far larger than any particular technical concern.  This is not simply a problem having to do with an unreliable technology, or a system that has a few bugs in it that we can work out reasonably. The problem is much deeper. The problem has to do with what appears to be a systematic effort to subvert or destroy American democracy itself. So, I think we’re missing the point if we treat this as a purely technical or technological matter.  The fact is that electronic voting machines can, as I say, make it possible to alter vote counts without leaving any trace, so it’s one of the most—It’s probably the stealthiest, and most foolproof kind of criminal instrument that one may have in order to change the results of an election. 
However, that’s simply a symptom of a much deeper problem..... which is—and I’m going to put it as boldly as I can—that the movement that now basically runs the American government is profoundly opposed to democracy itself.  It is a movement that is promoting an extreme agenda....not a conservative agenda by any stretch of the imagination—

 
MS:  Thank you!

 
MM: --But a radical agenda.

 
MS:  Exactly!

 
MM:  And because it is a radical agenda, it is a movement that must subvert the people’s will.  It must find ways around the electorate or it would be unable to have any power at all.  I see the Bush administration, or “regime”- to use a more appropriate word—as a real aberration in the history of American politics- in that it was never elected... and I think the same goes for its allies in the Congress.  There is abundant evidence, which I note in “Fooled Again”, that the Republicans took back their Senate majority in 2002 through a number of seemingly dubious races, in all of which Diebold DRE machines were used.  In all of which far right wing candidates won upset victories.  I’m talking about Georgia- the defeat of Max Cleland.  I’m talking about Minnesota with the defeat of Walter Mondale. John Sununu in New Hampshire.  Some people refer to this as “Diebold Magic”.  But what I’m trying to suggest here is that -- if we don’t attend to the real motive, power-- behind this danger, which is to say, a deep hostility towards democracy... we’re not going to come to terms with the problem because the Bush wing of the Republican Party is not interested in coming to terms with its adversaries.  It is interested in retaining power as completely and for as long as possible.

MS:  And the will of the people be damned--

MM: The will of the people be damned.  We’ve never seen an administration so overtly contemptuous of popular opinion of the majority view.  You know, when the public will was subverted in earlier administrations, like Nixon’s or Reagan’s,  it was always done in extreme secrecy—you know, it was covert... not something that the perpetrators wanted anyone to find out..  Now we have the President routinely vowing—right in the limelight—that he will violate court orders, he will break Constitutional precedent, he will ignore treaties, and it doesn’t make any difference how the people feel.  He seems to see his indifference to that kind of sentiment as a sign of his own strength..

MS:  I think maybe that comes also from having the confidence of knowing that elections are in your pocket---

MM:  Precisely...

MS:  Yeah, and —that’s why I bring it up—it’s so significant.  And another thing, too, is voters have been pretty much removed from the voting process.

MM:  Yeah, that’s right.

MS: From registration- with the electronic databases and that’s a big controversy now. To the casting of invisible ballots on the touchscreens. To the counting, with Microsoft Access programs instead of citizens hands.  And that, along with their distrust of the machinery, and the disenfranchisement that goes on everywhere... has created a form of voter apathy here that is really an illness we need to cure... You look at Mexico, two million people took to the streets after they suspected tampering—and here, we’ve got some bloggers taking to keyboards, but... nobody’s missing meals over it.

MM:  Well, I would qualify that a little bit in the following way.  Certainly I share your wish that the American people would congregate in public the way the Mexicans are.  However I do also think that if the press and the Democratic Party were to make as much of this issue as it should be made, if they were to treat it with all the seriousness that it requires, this kind of mass action would be much likelier. Now, we are a consumer culture.  We have lost almost all of the small “r” republican passion that we had in the 18th and early 19th centuries.  We’re a lot fatter than the Mexicans in other words (Laugh)  --and therefore more passive. 

But I also think it’s dangerous of us to draw conclusions from the sorts of numbers that a corrupt system gives us. —We know that the official voter turnout in 2004 was a little over 60% which is actually quite high by American standards.  Now, if we factor back into the equation all those voters who are unaccountably eliminated from the roll—People who’d registered but then showed up only to be told “you’re not registered” – this happened all over the country.   Thousands and thousands of people were simply sent home, or sent to the wrong polling place, or just told to leave, or get provisional ballots that were then thrown away.  The point is if we factor that population back into our calculations, we discover that the turnout was considerably higher than 60%-- so that it really starts to look more like the turnout in a genuinely democratic country and gives us less reason to feel embarrassed about so-called “voter apathy”.  So I think that the apathy comes from insufficient information.  It comes from the fact that the press and the Democrats will not take this issue seriously.  They will often ridicule, belittle efforts by those candidates who try to make an issue out of it. The coverage of the Mexican crisis is—the American coverage—is extremely revealing.  They treat Obrador as a crank, troublemaker—

MS:  Leftist! Leftist!

MM:  Leftist- they always call him “leftist” –

MS:  They put an “ist” on everything that they want to terrify you with.

MM: That’s exactly right.  And the fact is that some candidates might be quite objectionable to us on all sorts of grounds. Candidates in this country as well, but that’s beside the point...If they are the people’s choice—It’s not the media’s business to say, “Well, we should ignore those complaints because this person is dubious”.  It‘s the principal of the thing here.  And I think if we don’t honor that principal—we run the risk of losing our democracy entirely, in which case we will be a nation of slaves.

THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MS: Well you bring me right to the media, I wanted to talk to you about this anyways- Seeing as you are the media expert on our panel.  I want to read you one of my favorite quotes from Jonathan Simon, an exit poll analyst.  He said; “When the autopsy of our democracy is performed, it is my belief that media silence will be given as the primary cause of death.”  

I want to look at three periods here and get your feedback of media coverage.

(1) Before and during November ’04 election. 

(2) At the release of the Conyers Report,  who I know you worked extensively with, in ’05. 

(3) And the third one- today.   

In the lead up to ’04, it seemed the press was asking itself “Could the country stand another Florida?”  Another contest or a recount. They sort of answered themselves..“No”.    The New York Times, just before the election quoted former Secretary of State Warren Christopher by saying; “A repeat performance of 2000 would do irreparable damage to the goodwill and forbearance so essential to a functioning democracy.  For the political parties, 2004 could be one time when winning isn’t everything.”

MM: Yeah, that sounds great.  It’s a noble sentiment...

MS: It sounds to me like it’s implied “Don’t be a sore loser” when we get to the election.

MM:  That’s right. They had an understandable misgiving but they allowed it to take them in a dangerous direction.  That there was some attention some press attention paid to the dangers of a possible repeat performance of 2000.--
 

MS:  Mmhmm.  As if that was the danger.  I mean...we  learned-- afterwards of course-- there were bigger dangers than that... The New York Times again,  right after the election.  Front page headline: “Vote fraud theories spread by blogs are quickly buried”.

MM:  Yeah.  Well that kind of thing happened immediately after Election Day, not only in the mainstream press... because there were similar pieces in the Washington Post—

MS:  Yes.  The Washington Post actually said, “The bloggers, the mortally wounded party loyalists, and the spreadsheet wielding conspiracy theorists”—That’s what they called concerned voters.

MM: That’s right, well it was all ad hominem, it was all name calling.  It was all ridicule. The Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun,  They all did it.  But what was especially troubling was the progressive media was really no different.  The Nation.  Mother Jones.  These magazines either came right out and echoed the sentiment of the New York Times, and just laughed off the people who had legitimate concerns.  Or they just ignored the issue entirely. So, it was some kind of Kool Aid that everybody was drinking right after election day, so that even those publications that had done very good work prior to election day...did a sudden about face and joined the chorus which simply snickered at anyone who had evidence of some kind of fraud –-and the evidence was staggering!

MS:  And it just grew and grew—

MM:  It grew and grew, and it has grown and grown.

MS: Right and that brings us to 2005 when Congressman John Conyers released his Report, “Preserving Democracy- What went wrong in Ohio”.  Which was pretty thick, and was greeted basically by silence.

MM:  Yes, silence, that’s right.  I’ve got a whole chapter on this in “Fooled Again”.  And this is arguably one of the most important Congressional Reports in our history because it demonstrated, with plenty of documentation, that the outcome—the official outcome—in Ohio was highly questionable. And there were many, many reasons not to trust the supposed victory margin that Bush enjoyed.  Well it was ... it might as well have been released in Guam on Christmas Eve.  I mean it was just—Nobody knew about it... to this day many people don’t know about it—

 
MS:  Well, wasn’t somebody kidnapped that week?

MM: (laughs) Maybe there was the runaway bride or something like that.   --But the press didn’t want to know.  The reporters I spoke to hadn’t read it... they didn’t even think to read it. It was just a given, in their minds as well as at their headquarters that this was just craziness  the stuff we shrug off   I think it’s partly racism  because it was John Conyers and a largely black group of legislators who worked on this report—

MS:  (w/snark) Oh, what do they know about elections?

MM:  Yeah, exactly. But at any rate, you know-- the book was eventually published as a paperback by Academy Chicago which my parents own and run.  It a little company in Chicago--  I got them to publish it with a preface by Gore Vidal--

MS: Oh really!  Fantastic!

MM:  But that’s....it should’ve been Random House you see?  And it should’ve been all over the front pages and it should have been on CNN and it should’ve been on “60 Minutes” –

MS:  And it wasn’t.

MM:  Well there was not a peep about it.  Not only that... the Democratic National Committee released a report in the summer on Ohio... that, although it included plenty of further evidence of malfeasance in Ohio... ostentatiously drew the bizarre conclusion that  there was no fraud committed there!

MS:  Nnnot so bad...

MM: Not so bad.  It was all incompetence and accidents. In other words it was a not so subtle slap at Conyers.  It was an attempt by the party to distance themselves from I guess what they felt would be conceived as its “crackpot wing”.

MS:  John Conyers who actually was on the Watergate Comm—I mean, the history...he’s such a respected Congressman... Incredible that this would get this kind of attention, or lack of attention—

MM:  Oh yeah, he’s a solid citizen.  But now ... this weird sort of phenomena, you know. Bobby Kennedy came out with his piece in Rolling Stone—

MS:  Well that’s my next question.  Fast forward to today.  Actually it seems like since the Utah Hursti hack, which gained unprecedented press... I don’t know why that one, there have been so many hacks--but the Utah hack, all of a sudden I mean there was some over the top-- by some very conservative computer scientists-- analysis after that saying it was “election meltdown” was coming to us,  and we’ve been saying this for a long time, but suddenly—you had Robert Kennedy Jr.in Rolling Stone (which I thought I’d never call “mainstream”) You had Newsweek, New York Times,  Wall St. Journal, and now you’ve got Lou Dobbs on CNN!?

MM:  Yes, yes, well it’s fascinating...

MS: -- And the tone has changed.  Have you noticed?

MM  Well the tone has changed, but here’s—let me try to characterize this as precisely as possible.  It’s very interesting and ... a little bit troubling.  Bobby Kennedy’s piece was actually inspired by “Fooled Again” which he read early in the year.  And I’m very proud to say this....and then his piece came out and it made all the difference because he is a member of the establishment; he’s a Kennedy, he’s a rich person, he’s a celebrity... And even though he did get on a number of cable TV shows, his reception was hostile.  Nevertheless he did have the crucial effect-- which is to say the effect on certain members of the Democratic Party.  It suddenly became acceptable, within the party, to talk about the subject openly.  That did then help lead toward the far more open situation you’ve just described where-- finally NPR--  finally Newsweek, and all the rest of them, are dealing with it.  Lou Dobbs deals with it all the time.  However, what’s remarkable about this is that even though in theory we are now able to talk about the dangers of election fraud.... Whenever there are actual instances of possible or likely malfeasance that take place in the present... those stories are ignored or shrugged off.

For example the situation in Mexico- which is extremely important- you know, that country is in genuine turmoil as it should be over the theft of that election--

MS: Greg Palast has been covering it—

MM: Well, Of course, people like Greg cover it, Brad Friedman covers it, I cover it and you know... God Bless us, every one!  But you know the same media that will editorialize about the risks of election fraud will then turn around and then either ignore or belittle what’s going on right in our own backyard.  And I don’t just mean in Mexico, the....Primary, the Special Election in San Diego-

MS:  Oh, Busby—

MM:  That involved the victory of this guy Bilbray—

MS:  And the “sleepovers” with the equipment...

MM:  Right.  Exactly, this was the special election to replace Duke Cunningham, and the Democrat had a shot at winning in a Republican district... and, amazingly, the Republican pulled it off... and then it turned out that the voting machines had all been taken home— by Republicans working for the Board of Elections in the City! (laughs) I mean, you know, this is so grossly improper that you would think it would be driven into the forefront of coverage by the general concern people now have about the integrity of our elections.  But it isn’t.  Ah, there are serious questions about Cynthia McKinney’s defeat in Georgia.

MS:  Well, when you’re off the ballot....it’s a little hard....

MM:  Well, yeah.  But the fact is, I don’t care how inconvenient... troubling... painful.... or bothersome it may be, if there is widespread testimony to the effect that certain things weren’t working properly—then, it is the obligation of the authorities and the press to look into that, to take that seriously.

MS: And instead, we’ve got Paul Lehto down there now taking on another lawsuit, because we don’t have the press, we don’t have the authorities really seriously, as you say, watchdogging this.

MM:  Yeah,. exactly.  You know, you might put it this way..... According to the way the establishment views this—election fraud is a grave problem ... except in those cases where it actually seems to have occurred!  When it actually seems to have occurred...it’s only “extremists” and “paranoids” who worry about it.  But as long as it actually hasn’t happened anywhere, as long as it’s only a possibility—

MS:  A theory—

MM: A theory...  We’re perfectly willing to talk about the “theory”!

MS:  Now.  Before we couldn’t even discuss the theory...

MM: (laughs)  Exactly!  Exactly... So I don’t know what it’s going to take.  I don’t know what kind of wake up call is required here, but you know those of us who are engaged in fighting on this front are hoping that it comes soon.

MS:  Oh yes....I’m with you on that.

NATIVE AMERICAN DISENFRANCHISEMENT~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

MS:  There was one thing from your book I didn’t want to miss because I think a lot of people aren’t aware of this.  We hear a lot from everybody who’s covering this subject, about the disenfranchisement of minorities, but you really got into something  more specifically that I hadn’t been aware of—and that’s the Native American disenfranchisement.  Of course that figured prominently in our stories of the adventures of  Mr. Abramoff recently.. could you tell our listeners something about your findings?

MM:  Yeah, well, what I basically do is go through the various populations who were disenfranchised.  I mean, it’s no secret that the Bush regime works fundamentally by pushing the whole Jim Crow logic to the max and doing what they can do to disenfranchise African Americans.  I’ve got a lot of material in the book as well on the disenfranchisement of Hispanic populations.  Well this extends also to Native American  populations -- particularly in places like the Dakotas, and Arizona,  and New Mexico where the Indian voters actually, you know, would threaten the Republicans with sizable rebuke at the polls. They used all kinds of “tricks”—I mean aside from conventional dirty tricks... Like not so subtle racist advertising used to play white resentment, and so on.

There was also in various reservations... there were operatives stationed with cars and cameras taking pictures of people as they went in to vote.  There was a tremendous amount of that kind of intimidation going on.  I think it was probably quite effective in a place like South Dakota where Tom Daschle lost by a very small number of votes, I think  around 5000.  And we know from our study of notorious Jeff Gannon’s activities—Jeff Gannon was very, very heavily involved in doing propaganda against Daschle—

MS:  That would be “Hot Military Stud”...

MM: Uh, Hot Military Stud....that’s right –

MS:  Just for our listeners.

MM:  Bush’s friend—

MS:  White House correspondent--

MM:  (laughs) --and White House correspondent!

MS:  Give him his credit...

MM:  Yeah, well you know if we – if anyone made this up-- they would rightly be accused of going completely over the top.  It just beggars the satirist’s imagination.  But this character is the Party thug, he’s an activist.  And he was very heavily invested in the effort to tar and to defeat Tom Daschle.  And they got their wish.  So, here again- South Dakota... nobody ever talks about that race. They talk about Ohio somewhat, they talk about Florida in 2000.   But the point I think we should make here—you know it’s not only that here is yet another “outgroup” that was disenfranchised, or that was evidently disenfranchised by the Bush regime, but the more important point is—this was a national problem.  This went on from coast to coast.  This stuff did not only happen in Ohio.  It’s not as if Bush won everywhere legitimately, but in Ohio... he cut some corners.  It’s not the case. This kind of stuff went down all over the south.  It went on throughout the Midwest.—it went on in Wisconsin, it went on in Minnesota, it went on in Michigan.  It went on in New York! It went on, you know, some stuff went on in Oregon.  So it was part of a concerted effort—one might even call it a “Crusade”... to thwart the will of the American electorate.    I think it’s a mistake for us to pay attention exclusively to outgroups at this point.  Because what Bush / Cheney have actually done is to return this entire nation to the days of Jim Crow. Everyone who would’ve voted or tried to vote against Bush, and that includes a number of moderate Republicans.....all of them were disenfranchised. Bush has a natural base, sort of an enduring base... it’s probably about 20 to 30 percent of the electorate-   And that’s his crackpot following, and none will ever change their minds about him.  But they think as little of democracy as he does.  As I make clear in “Fooled Again”, we’re really dealing here with a fanaticism... the likes of which I don’t think has ever played a role in election fraud in this nation’s history.

NOVEMBER 7TH AND THE REPUBLICAN STRATEGY FOR WINNING~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

***WARNING:  THIS IS THE SCARY PART OF THE INTERVIEW....

MS:  So what do you see happening with the polls—I know he had a little bit of a spike recently—but in general he’s running in the 30’s and so is the Republican Party and that’s an obvious... I mean, mandate schmandate, there’s really not people behind this group or their decisions—

MM:  Right.

MS:  Now as we lead up to November.... How on earth... we don’t have this rattling gay marriage issue or flag burning... how would they justify a win this time?  What could they say?

MM:  Well, OK.  That’s a very good question.  This is what I think the following is appropriate.  First of all, the race will tighten up, because races always do.  Let’s bear in mind, parenthetically; polling outfits routinely over sample Republicans, in the first place.  This is one of the dirty little secrets of polling.  The Republican Party is not quite as numerous as we think it is from reading polls. But it is always the case that races tighten up as Election Day approaches.  And as we’ve seen, the press will often concoct a kind of tightening, even when there isn’t one.  I mean, you may remember the 13 point bounce that Bush allegedly got from his Convention in 2004.
This was fantasy.  I think he maybe jumped a point or two.  But the press simply bought and broadcast Karl Rove’s spin on this. 

And so we are sort of primed to expect races to tighten up. The Republicans will go all out to depict the Democrats as traitors, as terrorists and so on.  It will be extremely ugly.  That will unfortunately help make the race get tighter, or at least—will help make the seeming tightening of the race seem understandable.  OK?  Now, if it doesn’t tighten up enough... if it’s simply asking too much of people to believe they could win yet again...this is what I’m not just guessing will happen,  this is what I know will happen—from conversations with people who’ve talked to Republican strategists..   If the Republicans should lose the Senate, or the House, they will seize on the closest races—as many of them as they need to make up the difference—and they will go HOG WILD on the issue of election fraud.
And it sounds... you know—

MS:  No, I’ve heard this too—

MM:  -- it sounds pure Orwell, but of course, that’s what they always do—They will basically “swift boat” Democrats by charging them with the very crimes that the Republicans themselves have long since perfected.
And let’s not, you know, let’s never underestimate how... how low they will go to make their case.  It’s true that Lou Dobbs has spent a lot of time, you know, I mean a laudable amount of time dealing with the problem of the voting machines.  However, Lou Dobbs is driven primarily by one thing, and that’s his...xenophobia. 

I predict that it will all come down to the Sequoia machines. Sequoia, for your listeners here, is the smallest of the three top manufacturers of DRE machines, it’s nowhere near as big as Diebold or ES&S, and it’s been no more pro-Democratic than either of those other two All three companies have basically done  service for the Republicans in the last several elections.  However those are the facts and the facts don’t matter in a propaganda campaign. Sequoia is now owned by a Venezuelan company. 

MS: --Smartmatic out of Boca Raton.  Some of those dots they’ve connected a little too closely.  They’re trying to connect it right to Chavez’s inner core, and it’s a bit of a leap.—

MM:  Oh, it’s a bit of a leap, if we’re going to remain in the realm of the factual.  You know, we would note that Chavez uses Sequoia machines, and I think he shouldn’t—

MS: Well, he used to use ESS machines, if you recall, he had to stop his election in the middle because of the errors—ESS out of Nebraska—an American company which we “kindly” donated to him to use... And he had to fly people down to Nebraska to bring their technicians back to Venezuela to fix the machines.  And had a judge stop the election in the middle—it was unprecedented.  And the machines were repaired, and he of course won by a landslide.

MM:  Right, right, right. The point is, my reply to this is—if Chavez uses them... it’s  wrong.  You know, you shouldn’t use computerized machines no matter who makes them, I don’t trust him anymore than I trust Bush!  But the point here is that.... that fact--, that a Venezuela concern now owns Sequoia machines... believe me, that is more than enough to suffice the propagandists of the right who will set up this hysterical fantasy of Chavez, Jesse Jackson and John Conyers... and Bobby Kennedy Jr.,and Hillary Clinton—

MS:  Oh throw Michael Moore in.

MM: Michael Moore. Yeah, you know the whole...the usual, Barbara Streisand-   they’re all working together in this huge plot to steal the election from the Republicans.  Now, if the Democrats do not start—right now—to call a spade a spade... If they do not start right now to sort this business out and tell the truth about election fraud...  If, for example, they do not go back to the Gubernatorial  race in Washington state in 2004... This is the race that Gregoire won, she just managed to squeak by this guy Rossi and defeat him for the governorship.  They used Sequoia machines in some of the counties in Washington.  It is GOSPEL on the right that Gregoire’s people stole the election from Rossi.  There is abundant evidence that it was Rossi who was stealing votes in Washington    --You know, if the Democrats let that lie, which seems to be their preference, and they leave that story untold-- so the Republicans can pick it up again in the months after this Election Day—they’re going to be making a very, very big mistake.  Dr. Goebbels said; “He who speaks the first word to the world is always right”.  So the first entity to grab hold of the Washington state thing... and tries to define it as a precursor to the Democratic theft of the election—

MS:  Mmmhmmm I see, yeah.

MM: Whoever does that is going to be the most credible to the people.  You know, I’ve said this, I’ve written this, I’ve published this, and I still haven’t quite noticed the Democrats seizing on this issue as they should—

MS: By Democrats you mean the Congressional Democrats—

MM: The national Democrats.  The DNC.—Now they pay lip service to caring about it but I still see no real movement there, and it’s odd because... at the grassroots level, Democrats care passionately about this issue.

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PART TWO COMING NEXT WEEK!!