The most insidious of the several lies and distortions of the Kerry campaign is the attempt to perpetuate what the WSJ calls The Florida Myth. That is, the slander that Republicans systematically disenfranchised black Florida voters in the November 2000 election. This demogoguery isn't being dished up just by fringe elements sympathetic to the Kerry candidacy. This lie is being voiced by the candidate himself. Kerry has recently claimed on the campaign trail that a million black votes were stolen in the 2000 election. From the opinionjournal.com piece today:
In June 2001, following a six-month investigation that included subpoenas of Florida state officials from Governor Jeb Bush on down, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report that found no evidence of voter intimidation, no evidence of voter harassment, and no evidence of intentional or systematic disenfranchisement of black voters......The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division conducted a separate investigation of these charges and also came up empty. In a May 2002 letter to Democratic Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont, who at the time headed the Judiciary Committee, Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd wrote, "The Civil Rights Division found no credible evidence in our investigations that Floridians were intentionally denied their right to vote during the November 2000 election."
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights member Peter Kirsanow has written persuasively on the issue here, here, and here, and does so again today. From the second of those articles, (emphasis in original)...
Even before the last vote had been cast in the 2000 presidential election, activists had descended upon Florida, claiming a widespread conspiracy to disenfranchise black voters. Allegations that state troopers put up roadblocks and checkpoints to prevent blacks from voting were rampant. Dogs and hoses were allegedly used to drive black voters from the polls. Bull Connor's heirs had been unleashed — all at the direction of Governor Bush and his sidekick, Secretary of State Katherine Harris.The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights investigated over a six-month period beginning in January of 2001. Its 200-page majority report, "Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election," excoriates Florida's election officials for various acts of misfeasance. But the conclusions drawn by the report often bore little relationship to the facts contained therein. And media descriptions of the report did little to dispel the widespread belief among the black electorate that blacks had been systematically targeted for harassment, intimidation and disenfranchisement.
Of course, very few actually read the report. But the handful that did (especially the incisive dissent authored by Commissioners Abigail Thernstrom and Russell Redenbaugh) discovered the astonishing mendacity underlying the myth.
There's absolutely no evidence that a single person was intimidated, harassed, or prevented from voting by Florida law enforcement. Despite claims of rampant police intimidation and harassment, the only evidence of law-enforcement "misconduct" consisted of just two witnesses who described their perceptions regarding the actions of the Florida Highway Patrol. One of these witnesses testified that he thought it was "unusual" to see an empty patrol car parked outside a polling place. There was no evidence that sight of the vehicle somehow intimidated the witness or any other voters from casting ballots. There was no evidence that the erstwhile occupant of the vehicle harassed voters. There was no evidence that the empty vehicle was there for the purpose of somehow disenfranchising anyone assigned to vote at that location.
The second witness had filed a highly publicized complaint with the NAACP regarding a police motor-vehicle checkpoint. In the hysterical recount period following the election the complaint took on a life of its own and apparently became part of the basis for the legend that legions of cops were harassing thousands of black voters throughout Florida.
And yet this nonsense is cited as gospel by media figures and Democrats whose aim can be nothing but the incitement of black voter anger, resulting in what they hope will be large black voter turnout for Democratic candidates. It appears that nothing, not even vicious race-baiting, is beneath these people.
It is of a piece with the two other big lies of the Kerry campaign. First, that Bush has instituted a ban on stem-cell research. And second, that Bush plans to institute a military draft in a second term. In fact there has been legislation introduced in Congress to reinstitute a military draft. It's sponsors have all been Democrats.
If "all politicians do it", where is the Bush-Cheney campaign counterpart to this disgraceful behavior?
Posted by dan at September 28, 2004 11:29 PM