Posted on 08/27/2004 8:26:57 AM PDT by OESY
...By now, the Chávez intimidation factor is legendary and Mr. Carter's practice of ignoring it, as he did in his letter to the Journal, is baffling. Messrs. Frankel and Graham [Canada's Globe and Mail] do not ignore it: "Thousands of citizens who had signed the petition that triggered the referendum lost jobs, pensions or suffered harassment. Many feared that their choice would be known to the government, and the ubiquitous presence of machine-gun-toting soldiers inside and outside the polling stations reinforced this concern."
Venezuela's most important non-governmental election watchdog, Súmate, also strongly contradicts many of Mr. Carter's claims. For example, Mr. Carter submits that "international machines were tested in advance" and that "extra care was taken to ensure secrecy and accuracy." But Súmate tells a far different story.... [A]s it turned out, an impartial audit of those ballots was not allowed....
Auditing the software used by the machines was never permitted, the source code was never released, and finally, access was never allowed into the Totalization Room of CNE [National Electoral Council]."
To support his case, Mr. Carter keeps repeating in the press that Súmate had the same "quick count" as he did. This only creates confusion because "quick count" totals are merely the sum of totals coming from Chávez-controlled voting software.
The only way to check the accuracy of the government's claim of "victory" was to count ballots. But as Súmate describes in clear detail, Mr. Chávez blocked that process: "When the authorities decided against counting the ballots, the CNE agreed to a very limited audit with the other actors of the process, to count the ballots of only 1% of the ballot boxes, in other words, 192 ballot boxes....
Mr. Carter's complicity in the prevention of a reliable vote count was a betrayal of Venezuelan democracy.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Where's the Compassion they profess? Where's their Humanity? We find only their Hypocrisy. Principles are regarded as impediments to Power. That's why it is so easy for them to flip-flop. The "mainstream press" in the US never holds them accountable.
Peanut never meet a tyrant he didn't like or who's ass he didn't want to kiss. Must be something from his childhood.
"Let's be clear that Democrats like Carter are not interested in the advance of Freedom and Democracy, despite their party's name. One only has to look at Vietnam (2 million killed after the US withdrawal), Cambodia (1.5-2 million), Rwanda (1 million), Iraq (1.5 million), etc."
And don't forget the inordinate amount of time Carter spent in Nicolae Ceucescu's bed. (Yeah , I know, I know, Ceucescu was a bit of a thorn to Moscow.)
But every time he does his hypocritical moral posturing, I would love to jam (hard) into his face pictures of those Romanian kids abandoned and worse in those 'orphanages' over there.
I thought he looked like a zombie at the DNC.
Kerry would take us back to the glory days of Carter diplomacy incompetence.
Carter...The stupid sonuvabitch can find love only "in all the wrong places"...
America "betrayed" Carter, by regarding his as perhaps the MOST failed presidency of our modern era....
So, Carter has been working against America's interests - all over the world, ever since.....
Oh, and he's a freaking DEMOCRAT...
F'em
Semper Fi
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