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."

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

[F.J. Mitchell]

That will be a start in the right direction Mr. Meek, everybodies vote should count, assuming of course the voter has the literacy to comprehend the instructions at the polling place enough to express his/her prefence on the ballot. It would also be productive if the Democrats make their members aware of the fact that each voter gets only one vote per candidate-illegal aliens can't legally register and vote-dead people can't legally vote-tourists can't legally vote-pets can't legally vote and the polls do have posted closing times.

Baldwin promised to leave the country if the election didn't go to suit him. He is still here-still pretending to be an actor-still ranting like a pampered child that failed to get his way for once. Baldwin's promises are as believable as those of the politicians he supports. Just go away Alec-You promised!!!!

[Rome2000]

Here he is trashing George Bush, who is a REAL and ACTUAL Military Pilot, and yet he Pretends to be one.

In the circles he travels in, he is more of a war hero than GHWB.

W's dad getting picked up by a Navy sub after being SHOT DOWN by the Japs is just stuff and nonsense to the Alec Baldwins of the world.

It is truly amazing that humans that are as mentally deficient as Herr Baldwin can parlay their wealth into anti-American activities without consequence.

Lets dig up McCarthy, he was on the right track.

[falfa]

[The_Media_never_lie]

Isn't it ironic that Balwin forgot to say that the military that was disenfranchised in Florida by having their legitimate votes thrown out on a technicality are now protecting us from terrorism in Afghanistan? Wonder why he didn't mention that?

[lara]

Hate, hate, hate him! And all his brothers. Hate Julia Roberts, Martin Sheen, John Cusack, Bon Jovi (how dare he wear the flag at the Olympics), Ted Danson, Robert Redford, Barbra, Brad Pitt, most movie directors, the entire Sex and the City cast, Tina from SNL. I'm sure there's a thread for my rant so I'll go there now.

[Wondervixen]

Lets make a movie with Baldwin, Rosie O'Donut, Poopie Goldbrick, Madonna the Whore, and other leftist "superstars-in-their-own-minds" so we can have one unadulterated piece of big budget CRAP that we can all agree to ignore at the box office without guilt!

[Wondervixen]

You know, he's really nothing but a humongous COWARD. He sits in front of only media types who agree with his sewage and runs his alligator mouth. When is he going to sit amongst AMERICANS who he doesn't know their opinions ahead of time and talk like that?

His alligator mouth wouldnt go ten seconds before it overloaded his Tweety Bird ass!

[Z-28]

No more Alec Baldwin theater visits for this San Diego family.

So get over it Alac, the Supreme Court has ruled.

Now, about our unconstitutional U.S. Senate... with a member named James M. Jeffords who isn't representing his Republican constituency who elected him as he swore to do in an oath of office.

Whoah, those .jpegs take forever to load on a phone modem.

[Don Myers]

Sure, people like Baldwin are annoying. Whenever, someone wants to stir the pot and get the blood of the right boiling, they trot out someone like Baldwin.

I hope that people will eventually get the idea that this whole thing is nothing but a dog-and-pony show. It is a shame to go through life wearing blinders.