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.

[God'sgrrl]

The one thing I'll never forget: Baldwin appeared on Politically Incorrect and the subject was the Bush tax refund, a conservative asked him whether or not he thought it would be nice to have some extra cash in his pocket: Alec said "oh yeah, that small amount is already burning a hole in my pocket."

If you ask me, I think he's a greedy rich millionaire with no campassion. The only thing he's concerned about is getting a prochoice leftist in office so he can mess around and not worry about it. That tax refund was a nice blessing from Bush. My husband works and I stay at home with the kids.

[Stallone]

Baldwin, you piece of $hit, go #uck yourself.

There. Feel better already.

[Stallone]

Baldwin is the case-in-point of the danger of mixing Hollywood celebrity with politics.

Politically Incorrect placed Nobel Prize thinkers in the same forum as children playing 'pretend' with the inevitable result that the viewing public equalized the validity of their political insight.

And it played into the enormous self-importance of the celebrity idiots.

By trading their celebrity cache to Clinton in return for 'access' to the wheels of government, both 'benefitted' at the expense of the American public.

Ron Howard's views on Somalia are a waste of air time.

What Sandra Bernhard has to say about anything does not in the least interest me, let alone 'its' views on American foreign or domestic policy.

By the way, Baldwin is still a piece of $hit who can go #uck himself.

[lawdude]

"Alec Baldwin says disputed vote damaged democracy"

Damn good thing we are NOT a democracy!

[RummyChick]

bahahahahahahha
two interesting links
www.the-cloak.com

www.yahoo.com ...they have email ;-)

[abclily]

What is Alec Baldwin's background? He has studied history? Political science? World affairs? What qualifies him to wear a flight suit? Is this man insane? Or just a stupid puppet?

[summer]

Gov. Bush made two terrific judicial appointements recently, one new judge is a highly qulaified Korean immigrant, who came to FL at age 11, and the other is a black male. But all we hear about is Alec. Maybe you could even things out by bumpinig this thread: re: Jeb

[Charles Henrickson]

Mr. Conductor has lost his sparkle.

Mr. Conductor has lost his clout at the box office.

Mr. Conductor has lost his place in the script.

[Windy-Dave]

To all the mental cripples who love their so called democracy. America Is a Constitutional Republic who elects REPRESENTATIVES that WORK FOR US! Not The OTHER WAY AROUND!A democracy is the purest form of REPRESSION! No wonder dictators and despots love to espouse and tout our form of government as a democracy! Conservatives believe in principles that work for all citizens rights equally and allows free expression.

Get it right, tommy-teddy & alec quit lying and confusing the facts!

[Charles Henrickson]

Mr. Conductor has lost his wife.

[felinesforever]

Alec Baldwin is mentle. And he SUCKS!!!!!

[let freedom sing]

Only in a democracy, can a vote be disputed. Baldwin should shut his mounth and leave the country-- like he said he would.

[McGavin999]

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.

Yeah, that's right you moron. Three thousand dead Americans is just a distraction! You need to crawl back into your hole Baldwin before you make one of your idiotic comments to the kind of people who will punch your lights out.

[Ipberg]

I thought the South Park mission to the Baldwin estate had succeeded. Damn.

[CWRWinger]

IMO, people watch too many movies as an escape from reality. It makes them 'feel good'. The media of movies may cause some to blur the distinction between what is played out on a screen and reality. They then see a movie star making a political statement and assign to that actor the credibility which was given to him on the big screen by the screen writer, producer, PR guy, etc. When in reality, the screen star is nothing but a zero with the circle rubbed out, like old Alec here.

I don't go to movies (haven't for a long time) and I don't own a TV. Both are a waste of time and money. Both are used by overwhelmingly left-wing establishments to promote their propaganda and brainwashing and unbalanced perspective of what life is about. And life is not about what idiots like Alec are about.

Besides, this lopsided, left leaning take on life which comes out of Hollywood, is loaded with BAD yankee philosophy and thinking and culture.

[Hotline]

he's a lie-beral big mouth with money, face-recognition, access to the media, and a message that is simpatico with those who provide him the air-time. And that's what our free press has become.

He is all that, and he also had the (good for him, bad for us) fortune to speak at the A&M breakfast supposedly commemorating a successful march on Tallahassee two years ago. That's the only reason he got column inches.

I know Bill Cotterell, the reporter on this particular piece. While I don't agree with everything he writes, he's usually pretty fair. He covers the capitol, and was probably tossed this assignment because it's a "hollywood star" -- something we don't see a lot of here in our little armpit of the state -- and wrote the only news he saw in that room.

Alec Baldwin is news only because Alec Baldwin *was* news -- in a car-wreck, turn-your-head-to-stare kind of way -- when he said he'd leave the country if Bush were elected. Note they don't ask him to comment on Middle Eastern policy, or the economy, or anything that really matters. Nor would they...he's only an "expert" on hating Bush and making a spectacle of himself about the subject.

And that's the only reason they invited him to speak, too.

[Senator Goldwater]

My sentiments exactly.