Actor compares 2000 election to Sept. 11-Alec Baldwin says disputed vote damaged democracy

Tallahassee Democrat ^ | Posted on Fri, Mar. 08, 2002 | By Bill Cotterell

[vannrox]

(Contrary to public knowledge, he never served in the Armed Forces.)
FR Comment. IS there some way that he can be arrested for impersonating an Officer?
Posted on Fri, Mar. 08, 2002

Actor compares 2000 election to Sept. 11

Alec Baldwin says disputed vote damaged democracy

By Bill Cotterell

DEMOCRAT SENIOR WRITER

Florida's 2000 presidential election fiasco damaged democracy as badly as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks hurt the nation, actor Alec Baldwin said Thursday.


Baldwin told a Florida A&M University audience that President Bush and his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, are hoping that a wartime "moratorium on criticizing the government" will help Republicans in the fall elections.


Baldwin, a New Yorker, said memories of Sept. 11 have overshadowed public doubts about the 36-day recount of Florida presidential ballots. He said the war makes it hard for Bush critics to remind voters of "this other disaster that we faced in this country - a disaster that ... has done as much damage to our country as any terrorist attack could do, in some ways.


"I know that's a harsh thing to say, perhaps, but I believe that what happened in 2000 did as much damage to the pillars of democracy as terrorists did to the pillars of commerce in New York City," Baldwin said, drawing applause from the breakfast audience of about 200.


Bush spokeswoman Elizabeth Hirst said the governor signed legislation last year providing $24 million in election-reform funding over two years, including $6 million for voter education and $2 million for a statewide registration database. Much of the rest will go for replacing punch-card voting equipment and training poll workers to avoid what happened in the presidential election.


"Florida has moved on and America has moved on," she said. "We've got a president with incredibly high ratings now."


The governor also is running substantially ahead of Democratic challengers in Florida polls.


Baldwin is a board member of People for the American Way, a liberal lobbying group that sponsored the two-day observation of the second anniversary of a mass march on Tallahassee. The march protested the governor's 1999 executive orders that supplanted affirmative action in university admissions and state contracting.


As in a rally at St. Mary's Primitive Baptist Church on Wednesday night, speakers at the FAMU prayer breakfast focused more on the disputed 2000 presidential election than the One Florida protests they were commemorating. Baldwin and other speakers warned that voters will face new challenges this year because legislative and congressional redistricting is changing political boundaries.


He said the White House and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, along with the governor and other Republican leaders, are banking on the news media and voters staying distracted by the war on terrorism.


"When Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon spokespeople say to you, 'Well, this is going to be a long war, we're going to be in Afghanistan for the long haul,' what that euphemism means is that the moratorium on criticizing the government must be extended longer and longer and longer - ideally, beyond the 2002 election," Baldwin said.


Participants in the rally and prayer breakfast included Sen. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, and former Rep. Tony Hill of Jacksonville. The two staged a sit-in at the lieutenant governor's office Jan. 18-19, 2000, demanding to see Bush about One Florida. The sit-in led to a March 7 march of about 12,000 protesters on the Capitol and a voter-registration drive that boosted black turnout by about 65 percent in the presidential election.


Meek said the governor could be in trouble if people "remember in November" what happened two years ago.


"It's like a hurricane, starting like a tropical storm and going to Category 1, Category 2," Meek said. "That's what I feel is coming in November. In this upcoming election, for the first time in state history, we're going to make sure everyone's vote is counted."

---

Contact reporter Bill Cotterell at (850) 599-2243 or bcotterell@taldem.com.

[vannrox]

This guy needs to see real action...

[ICE-FLYER]

Gross thing #1....He needs to remove the military uniform.

Also, it will not be long before this anti-American piece of garbage is calling Christians "American Taliban" and that Bush is tgheir cult leader.

[vannrox]

Oh, I forgot...
Obtained via the Drudge Report.


I am INSULTED that he is wearing a flight suit with the Insignia of a Pilot on it. Those wings are difficult to obtain, and most people who see this criminal talking and addressing people in this uniform don't realize that he is Impersonating an Pilot of the US Military.

Here he is trashing George Bush, who is a REAL and ACTUAL Military Pilot, and yet he Pretends to be one. It so disgusts me. I want to see him pay for this. Can't he be arrested or something? Is there any Freeper who has any ideas?

George Bush is the CIC can't he use the UNMJ or something to imprison this clown?


Or, if he had some actual military record, couldn't the prsident reinstate him and give him duty as a private in a real nasty place?


I want ideas!!!!

[RLK]

Alec should learn this is a constitutional republic, not just a democracy. Those who qualify as having won an election according to the standards established by that constitution, take office, whether he agrees with it or not.

[Chi-townChief]

I thought this pig was leaving the country.

[vannrox]

This PIG should NEVER EVER wear a Unitied States Military Uniform. It is an INSULT to every person who ever served in the Military.

[07055]

Whatever happened to "moving on" to "more important things"?

[Bigg Red]

"...what that euphemism means..."

What euphemism, Baldwin? There wasn't any euphemism for you to explain in your preceding phrase! I think you've destroyed too many brain cells over the years. BTW, when are you leaving the country, clymer?

[Jaded]

Goodbye Alex.

[RLK]

I see no insignia of rank on his shoulders. Therefore he is no impersonating an officer. He's actin in his let's pretend image world. He played General Dolittle in his last movie, so he thinks he's a real general.

[CWRWinger]

First of all...Alec Baldwin "ain't nobody".

From the title, the disputed vote may have damaged democracy, but it fortified the Republic.

[Doug Fiedor]

Excuse me. Why in hell does a talking manikin get quoted as a newsmaker? His only real function in life is make-believe. He mouths the words other prepare. He has absolutely no credibility commenting on real life -- unless one is interested in which type of luxury car to purchase, that is.

[lilylangtree]

Why is Alec Baldwin still in this country? He was suppose to leave, the lily-livered, coward when Bush got the presidency. If our democracy is so damaged according to Baldwin, why is it that many cities are changing from the chad voting system to computerized so that a "Florida" won't happen again?

[vikingchick]

Alec Frenchman needs to leave for gay Paree right now, although who knows? Maybe even France has standards and they won't let him in.

[bfree]

Actor compares 2000 election to Sept. 11

This title is misleading. I didn't expect to see Alec-it said actor.

[arly]

Is that a red china uniform this as@clown has on ?...

[Publius]

"Florida has moved on and America has moved on," she said. "We've got a president with incredibly high ratings now."

This comment from a Bush spokesmen is the wrong way to go and shows a lack of understanding (and respect) for the Constitution. High ratings do not justify the actions Baldwin has charged. It's as if she is saying, "Might makes right."

The correct answer is:

• The Constitution was followed to the letter. The state legislatures are authorized to decide the matter of presidential electors. States are not even required to hold popular vote elections for presidential electors.
• The Florida Supreme Court exceeded its authority and was reversed by the US Supreme Court, which did not "select" Bush but corrected an illegal state court decision intended to take the matter of electors out of the hands of the legislature.
• This is a Republic, not a democracy. Mr. Baldwin should go into that cardboard box in his attic and pull out that high school history book he didn't even bother to read. (He was probably too busy smoking weed and figuring out the next girl he was going to jump.) Tell him to read his Constitution!

Then take him on about the uniform he is desecrating.

[linn37]

maybe he will open another guestbook hahahaha

[RLK]

His standing up there in that military jacket is just as subjectively real to him as if he'd been through D-day or Iwo Jima. It just as real to his audience.