What do George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Britt Hume, Rush Limbaugh, John Ashcroft, Tom DeLay, Trent Lott, Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reily and Jerry Falwell all have in common? They're all listed in the "Chickenhawk Database." Compiled by Vietnam veteran and newspaper editor Steve Fowle, the database lists pro-war pundits who "share three qualities: bellicosity (a warlike manner or temperament), public prominence, and a curious lack of wartime service when others their age had no trouble finding the fight." The Washington Post notes that many of "the nation's most persistent voices in support of military attack on Iraq ... are people who never served in Vietnam or saw first hand the carnage that war produces." Conservative Senator Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, agrees: "It is interesting to me that many of those who want to rush this country into war and think it would be so quick and easy don't know anything about war. They come at it from an intellectual perspective versus having sat in jungles or foxholes and watched their friends get their heads blown off."
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In 1990, George H. W. Bush built a case for war with Iraq by claiming that 250,000 Iraqi troops were positioned and threatening to invade Saudi Arabia. It was a pretty serious fib, says journalist Jean Heller, who investigated the administration's claim and found no evidence for it. Now the administration of George the Younger seems to be using very similar disinformation. The Christian Science Monitor notes that the same people who invented disinformation to support the first war with Iraq are now in charge of Dubya's current war drive.

"This administration is capable of any lie ... in order to advance its war goal in Iraq," says a US government source in Washington with some two decades of experience in intelligence. "It is one of the reasons it doesn't want to have UN weapons inspectors go back in, because they might actually show that the probability of Iraq having [threatening illicit weapons] is much lower than they want us to believe.

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Our court appointed president needed the help of his brother and Florida campaign chief who also served as top election officer to suppress the minority vote in whatever way they could:

The NAACP's lawsuit over Florida's disputed 2000 presidential election appears headed for a close as the state and two counties -- the only remaining defendants -- have agreed to a settlement, attorneys said Tuesday. Joe Klock, an attorney for the state, told U.S. District Judge Alan Gold that all parties promised to file final papers by Friday for approval. Attorneys would not discuss terms of the settlement. The class-action lawsuit filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights groups argued voters were disenfranchised during the on Nov. 7, 2000 election; it included allegations that blacks were kept from voting in some counties. The state and Orange and Hillsborough counties were the only holdouts in the lawsuit. Miami-Dade, Broward, Leon, Volusia and Duval counties settled earlier rather than face trial.

Hmm, let's tally the fraud - first, a contract firm with strong Republican and Texas ties erroneously marks thousands of voters as felons, denying their right to vote. Next, the inconsistent treatment of overseas votes - in precincts favorable to Republicans, the rule of law was discarded and those votes were tallied, regardless of postmarks or deadlines. Many Republican voters tallied multiple votes. In Democrat favored precincts, the letter of the law was adhered to, which suited Republican strategists just fine. Second, the differences in the mechanical error rates of non-registered votes between Republican and Democrat districts that exceed any normal statistical deviation. And finally an admission (by agreeing to the settlement) that black voters were kept from voting and wrongfully turned away. Florida is doing its earnest to return to the days of Jim Crow.
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