Post by Walter on Aug 19, 2004 17:05:38 GMT -5
The New York Times - Argues Both Sides of The Issue of Election Fraud
By JAMES TARANTO
Wall Street Journal
Gail Collins to Venezuelans: Drop Dead
Venezuela's ruler, Hugo Chávez, apparently survived a recall vote on Sunday, but widespread allegations of fraud are casting serious doubt on the results. This didn't stop Jimmy Carter, who was in Venezuela as an election observer, from endorsing Chávez's "victory."
Of course, this is the same Jimmy Carter who once said to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu: "Our goals are the same, to have a just system of economics and politics. . . . We believe in enhancing human rights . . . [and] the freedom of our own people." (Hat tip: Joshua Muravchik, who includes the quote in his devastating "Presidential Leadership" chapter on Carter.)
Yesterday Gail Collins's New York Times editorial board declared not only that Chávez was the legitimate winner but that it will brook no dissent on the question:
"It is time for President Hugo Chávez's opponents to stop pretending that they speak for most Venezuelans. They do not, as the failure of a recall referendum, promoted by the opposition, decisively demonstrated on Sunday. . . . The opposition . . . needs to stop shouting foul."
This editorial ran three days after the Venezuela vote. Meanwhile, after more than three years, the Times is still shouting foul over America's 2000 election. Today, 1,381 days after George W. Bush's victory, the Times begins its lead editorial this way:
"One of the scandals of the last presidential election was the large number of voters who were denied the right to vote because of foul-ups in the election system, like errors in the voting rolls or problems in directing voters to their correct polling places."
The editors of the Times' Paris edition, known as the International Herald Tribune, dutifully published the Venezuela editorial yesterday. At the same time, they defied New York's no-dissent diktat, publishing an op-ed piece by Enrique ter Horst, a Venezuelan lawyer and political analyst, who writes from Caracas that "the perception that a massive electronic fraud led to President Hugo Chávez's mandate not being cut short in the recall referendum on Sunday is rapidly gaining ground in Venezuela":
All exit polls carried out on the day had given the opposition an advantage of between 12 percent and 19 percent. But preliminary results announced by the government-controlled National Electoral Council at 3:30 a.m. gave Chávez 58.2 percent of the vote, against 41.7 percent for the opposition. . . .
Two days after the referendum, . . . evidence is growing that the software of the touch-screen voting machines had been tampered with. The opposition has requested that the votes be recounted manually and that the boxes holding the voting papers, currently stored in army garrisons, be put under the custody of international observers. . . .
This is not just another election in a country where political actors abide by democratic rules and civilized behavior. It is an election where a choice of society is being made, and where one side is prepared to use any method to remain in power, even elections if it is assured of "winning" them.
In today's Wall Street Journal, Thor Halvorssen gives a chilling account of some of the Chávez regime's methods:
Chávez's goons clearly agree with the Times that "the opposition . . . needs to stop shouting foul," though in fairness Collins & Co. do not expressly endorse shooting people in order to make it so.
One of the Times' complaints about U.S. elections is that many states disfranchise would-be voters who've been convicted of a felony. "Denying the vote to ex-offenders is antidemocratic," the paper announced in a July editorial. In Venezuela, it seems criminals are so empowered that they actually run the country. By the Times' standards, we guess that makes Venezuela more democratic than America. And if you don't agree, Gail Collins would like to invite you to kindly shut up.
By JAMES TARANTO
Wall Street Journal
Gail Collins to Venezuelans: Drop Dead
Venezuela's ruler, Hugo Chávez, apparently survived a recall vote on Sunday, but widespread allegations of fraud are casting serious doubt on the results. This didn't stop Jimmy Carter, who was in Venezuela as an election observer, from endorsing Chávez's "victory."
Of course, this is the same Jimmy Carter who once said to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu: "Our goals are the same, to have a just system of economics and politics. . . . We believe in enhancing human rights . . . [and] the freedom of our own people." (Hat tip: Joshua Muravchik, who includes the quote in his devastating "Presidential Leadership" chapter on Carter.)
Yesterday Gail Collins's New York Times editorial board declared not only that Chávez was the legitimate winner but that it will brook no dissent on the question:
"It is time for President Hugo Chávez's opponents to stop pretending that they speak for most Venezuelans. They do not, as the failure of a recall referendum, promoted by the opposition, decisively demonstrated on Sunday. . . . The opposition . . . needs to stop shouting foul."
This editorial ran three days after the Venezuela vote. Meanwhile, after more than three years, the Times is still shouting foul over America's 2000 election. Today, 1,381 days after George W. Bush's victory, the Times begins its lead editorial this way:
"One of the scandals of the last presidential election was the large number of voters who were denied the right to vote because of foul-ups in the election system, like errors in the voting rolls or problems in directing voters to their correct polling places."
The editors of the Times' Paris edition, known as the International Herald Tribune, dutifully published the Venezuela editorial yesterday. At the same time, they defied New York's no-dissent diktat, publishing an op-ed piece by Enrique ter Horst, a Venezuelan lawyer and political analyst, who writes from Caracas that "the perception that a massive electronic fraud led to President Hugo Chávez's mandate not being cut short in the recall referendum on Sunday is rapidly gaining ground in Venezuela":
All exit polls carried out on the day had given the opposition an advantage of between 12 percent and 19 percent. But preliminary results announced by the government-controlled National Electoral Council at 3:30 a.m. gave Chávez 58.2 percent of the vote, against 41.7 percent for the opposition. . . .
Two days after the referendum, . . . evidence is growing that the software of the touch-screen voting machines had been tampered with. The opposition has requested that the votes be recounted manually and that the boxes holding the voting papers, currently stored in army garrisons, be put under the custody of international observers. . . .
This is not just another election in a country where political actors abide by democratic rules and civilized behavior. It is an election where a choice of society is being made, and where one side is prepared to use any method to remain in power, even elections if it is assured of "winning" them.
In today's Wall Street Journal, Thor Halvorssen gives a chilling account of some of the Chávez regime's methods:
On Monday afternoon, dozens of people assembled in the Altamira Plaza, a public square in a residential neighborhood here that has come to symbolize nonviolent dissent in Venezuela. The crowd was there to question the accuracy of the results that announced a triumph for President Hugo Chávez in Sunday's recall referendum.
Within one hour of the gathering, just over 100 of Lt. Col. Chávez's supporters, many of them brandishing his trademark army parachutist beret, began moving down the main avenue towards the crowd in the square. Encouraged by their leader's victory, this bully-boy group had been marching through opposition neighborhoods all day. From afar they began to taunt the crowd in the square, chanting, "We own this country now," and ordering the people in the opposition crowd to return to their homes. . . . The Chávez group threw bottles and rocks at the crowd. Moments later a young woman in the square screamed for the crowd to get down as three of the men with walkie-talkies, wearing red T-shirts with the insignia of the government-funded "Bolivarian Circle," revealed their firearms. They began shooting indiscriminately into the multitude.
A 61-year-old grandmother was shot in the back as she ran for cover. The bullet ripped through her aorta, kidney and stomach. She later bled to death in the emergency room. An opposition congressman was shot in the shoulder and remains in critical care. Eight others suffered severe gunshot wounds. Hilda Mendoza Denham, a British subject visiting Caracas for her mother's 80th birthday, was shot at close range with hollow-point bullets from a high-caliber pistol. She now lies sedated in a hospital bed after a long and complicated operation. She is my mother.
Within one hour of the gathering, just over 100 of Lt. Col. Chávez's supporters, many of them brandishing his trademark army parachutist beret, began moving down the main avenue towards the crowd in the square. Encouraged by their leader's victory, this bully-boy group had been marching through opposition neighborhoods all day. From afar they began to taunt the crowd in the square, chanting, "We own this country now," and ordering the people in the opposition crowd to return to their homes. . . . The Chávez group threw bottles and rocks at the crowd. Moments later a young woman in the square screamed for the crowd to get down as three of the men with walkie-talkies, wearing red T-shirts with the insignia of the government-funded "Bolivarian Circle," revealed their firearms. They began shooting indiscriminately into the multitude.
A 61-year-old grandmother was shot in the back as she ran for cover. The bullet ripped through her aorta, kidney and stomach. She later bled to death in the emergency room. An opposition congressman was shot in the shoulder and remains in critical care. Eight others suffered severe gunshot wounds. Hilda Mendoza Denham, a British subject visiting Caracas for her mother's 80th birthday, was shot at close range with hollow-point bullets from a high-caliber pistol. She now lies sedated in a hospital bed after a long and complicated operation. She is my mother.
Chávez's goons clearly agree with the Times that "the opposition . . . needs to stop shouting foul," though in fairness Collins & Co. do not expressly endorse shooting people in order to make it so.
One of the Times' complaints about U.S. elections is that many states disfranchise would-be voters who've been convicted of a felony. "Denying the vote to ex-offenders is antidemocratic," the paper announced in a July editorial. In Venezuela, it seems criminals are so empowered that they actually run the country. By the Times' standards, we guess that makes Venezuela more democratic than America. And if you don't agree, Gail Collins would like to invite you to kindly shut up.
