posted April 23, 2004 08:40 PM            

quote:

---

I feel that you take joy in the adherence of flip/floping to one side to the next depending on which side is winning, like France!

---

Th reason I asked you that question, ozonefiller, was because of the comment I just quoted. To me, it implied that you perceived there to be winning, and thus losing, sides on this website. I didn't want to just draw an assumption about how you see things, so I decided to ask you outright. That's all. BTW, I noticed you didn't answer. I'm not trying to make you answer ... I can understand if you don't want to. I was just curious. What can I say I'm a Sagittarius?

******

I didn't ask jwhop because I was responding to your post with that question. Besides, you've already implied that you want him to answer that question, and another, so I'll just wait and see if he decides to share his side. I do think that him using the same tactic that he was "complaining" about was appropriate, if blunt, because it made a good show of just how ridiculous that tactic really is. I don't know if that was his intention, but that's how I saw it.

posted April 23, 2004 09:21 PM            

NOW,would it behove you to know that maybe Raine6 might be a "smart" child or maybe even less then that,GEEZ we don't even know what sex Raine6 is YET! ...and NOW if you (so called) read any of my privious posts in the past,you would also know that I (myself) have been reprimanded BY RANDALL about such things about what I say and how I say them in Lindaland and I take all that to the bank,for he did state to me (if I don't recall so correctly)that "ALL IS WELCOME IN LINDALAND,INCLUDING CHILDREN!"

...and if anything that I said (so far) does hold true,then you guys have successfully and possibly managed to scare another young human-being and his or her thoughts,for just having good intentions!

I hope your happy!

HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?

posted April 23, 2004 10:16 PM            

quote:

---

waiving around the "olive branch" and was proclaimed possible "words of peace"

---

If I've nit-picked anything, it's been his/her motives more than anything else. The only way that I can do that through written postings is by analyzing and breaking down what the person in question has written and how. It isn't so much that I disagree with his/her views, it's that I find it quite odd and lacking in tolerance that someone, who professes to be all about peace and love and lofty spiritual ideals, turns around and tries to pigeon hole people who don't agree with him/her about as difficult and complex an issue as war and the like. It's like, "either you are entirely like me and believe that any kind of physical action in regards to conflict is wrong or you're a hypocrite and unspiritual, you have no compassion, how can you quote such spiritual people (?), yada yada yada," and then proceed to completely and utterly disregard any and all arguments or questions posed with ... yes, believe it or not ... an actual intent (on my part at least as I can only speak for myself) to understand and see things from his/her perspective clearly without all the moral/spiritual accusations and assumptions.

As far as a "group bash" thing is concerned ... I don't think people have "teamed" up and are out to "get" anyone or anything like that. I started my discussions with him/her in a thread called "Randall, I have to disagree with your words ..." started by Jacqueline (?). I had no idea anyone else was having the same difficulties in communications with him/her until I saw others responding to him/her about the same troubles I was having. To be honest, I was shocked. Part of me was, admittedly, a little relieved that I wasn't the only having these difficulties because it is a rare thing for me to have this much trouble communicating with anyone, but at the same time, I did feel quite sorry for him/her. However, my feelings of sympathy for him/her does not change the fact that I still disagree with his/her methods of expression. Again, it isn't necessarily just the words used but the thoughts, assumptions, and judgements behind them. I don't know where I posted it, but I know I've mentioned my concerns over intolerance before. And trust me, I had no intention of making anyone feel they had to leave or stop sharing or anything like that. If I did, I would come out and said something like that ... I just don't feel that way. Actually, the only reason I bothered to try to keep the lines of communications open was precisely because I wanted to get to the bottom of what he/she was trying to say without all the fluff and stuff clouding the issues. Why would I bother to thoroughly analyze someone's words if I didn't really care about the meaning behind them, or that person's ideas?

OK, so who is "Joan of Arc" here? Really? What did you mean by that? Did you mean me? I ask that last one because you referred to me as being like France before.
I'm sorry if it bothers you that I'm asking, and didn't understand the point of that comment, but I like to ask questions in order to be able to understand ... eventually.

You know, it actually did occur to me that perhaps he/she is a young person. I thought about it and then I realized that his/her age isn't that big an issue. I've had discussions with people from all age groups (ok, so like from 5 years old to around 80 years old so perhaps not all age groups ). I didn't want to ask because I didn't think it was appropriate, and also because perhaps it might've been misconstrued as a condescending attitude in relation to age vs. wisdom/knowledge or something ludicrous like that. Also, I learned alot of what I know (which I will gladly admit isn't much) from precisely this same sort of issue. I was very young when I began discussing these sorts of issues and had to learn through trial and error how to express myself without preaching or judging. When somebody criticized me constructively (and not quite so constructively), even if it might've hurt my feelings (Moon in Aries) I did try to accept those criticisms and look for the truth behind them after a while. I am very grateful to the people who helped me learn such valuable lessons. I understand that not everyone is like me, but I tried to get into the nitty-gritty behind his/her (raine6's) posts so that I could see clearly where he/she was coming from and perhaps help him/her express him/herself in a way that people won't misunderstand him/her so much and he/she won't end up as frustrated. Certainly I think children are welcome in LindaLand, just like everyone else. But I also think we are all here to learn from and share with each other ... children from adults and adults from children and children from children and adults from adults, and let's not forget the immortals, etc.

I think his/her intentions were, somewhere deep inside, positive as well, but he/she came off as very biased and judgemental. I'm sorry but that's how I see the situation and I call them as I see them.

I'm not happy and I'm not unhappy. I like you the same as I did before and I like myself the same as I did before, and everyone else here, as well, including raine6. And, no, I never dis-liked him/her, in case you or anyone else thought that's why I responded to him/her the way I did.

posted April 23, 2004 11:12 PM            

HEY! People have come up to me(with full force and fury)in a conversation and I've learned either to "step back and use a more delicate approach" to the conversation, or to give the person time to cool they're engines or either just not respond at all,but to give in full concideration on what that person is trying to say on a more detached level of perspective,like I do with anybody really,until of course you start getting personal with me(then you'll get to see my ugly side),can you agree?

Raine6,tried the same stint with me,did you see me indulge into the conversation and then started flipping out on him/her? No,I told Raine6 that he/she was wrong and I explained why and that was that. Isis has claimed that I was being a "smart ass",did you see me lose my cool? No, I did exactlly what she thought I was (in a joking way)!

I'm not saying that YOU were as harsh as JW was,but sometimes we all need to express a little compassion now and again and not what he/she is expecting or not expecting,this is what I meant by mastering "The art of Listening" To understand... you see, no matter what age or creed (or what have you)that one belongs to and if you really did read my post in the past,then you would have noticed that I(myself) has come a long way and is still learning. I did learn that "I" can leave it to the other person's dicision on what they want to do with me,they can either try to understand me or disregard me all together,but that is only THAT other person's choice...not mine *speaks with a more somber tone* "To embrace silence" and I again had to relearn that,for I have stated in a post(long ago in Lindaland) that "Silence is Golden!"...

posted April 23, 2004 11:24 PM            

These are some pretty intemperate remarks, fighting words really. I saw some posts were you were quoting from the Bible. Did you ever read in that book " "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets"?

These are portions of your recent posts Ozone.

Where I think it would prelude to others to judge someone lest they be judged by others,

They were SO happy,that they even gave(threw delivery)a WMD to President Bush right at The White House door(since he wanted them so bad),but he was upset anyway,he was trying to signal to the Iraqis that what he wanted was NOSE CANDY!The President uses coke

The Kennebunkport Hillbilly
(sung to the tune of The Beverly Hillbillies Theme Song)

Come and listen to my story 'bout a boy name Bush.
His IQ was zero and his head was up his tush. He's an idiot

He drank like a fish while he drove all about.
But that didn't matter 'cuz his daddy bailed him out.
DUI, that is. Criminal record. Cover-up.

Well, the first thing you know little Georgie goes to Yale.
He can't spell his name but they never let him fail. An idiot at Yale

He spends all his time hangin' out with student folk. Still a coke head
And that's when he learns how to snort a line of coke.
Blow, that is. White gold. Nose candy.

The next thing you know there's a war in Vietnam.
Kin folks say, "George, stay at home with Mom."
Let the common people get maimed and scarred.
We'll buy you a spot in the Texas Air Guard.
Cushy, that is. Country clubs. Nose candy. More coke

Twenty years later George gets a little bored.
He trades in the booze, says that Jesus is his Lord. He's a hypocrite

He said, "Now the White House is the place I wanna be."
So he called his daddy's friends and they called the GOP.
Gun owners, that is. Falwell. Jesse Helms.

Come November 7, the election ran a little late.
Kin folks said "Jeb, give the boy your state!"
"Don't let those colored folks get into the polls." Stole the election

So they put up barricades so they couldn't punch their holes.
Chads, that is. Duval County. Miami-Dade.

Before the votes were counted five Supremes stepped in.
Told all the voters "Hey, we want George to win."
"Stop counting votes!" was their solemn invocation.
And that's how George finally got his coronation.
Rigged, that is. Illegitimate. No moral authority.He's not the real President
Y'all come vote now. Ya hear?

Who knows,they might have that already takin' care of,it be like Nazi Youth all over again,just for Bush and Cheney family emblem.

And the answer is that had I had any inkling whatsoever that the people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to save the country, just like we're working hard to prevent a further attack.
--------------------------------------------
"LIER!"

THAT SHOWS THAT THEY ARE VERY COMFORTABLE OF BEING SLAVES TO A DICTATOR! THAT DON'T GIVE ONE DAMN TOWORDS DEMOCRACY,BUT...could you really blame them,look on how(more and more) we are losing are rights and how we are always being lied to by our leaders,do you think that maybe they see it too? Maybe,they realize that freedom is only an illusion and that it is US that is really living the lie!

And the other war is save the oil from radical fundamentalists(that was launched in the United States),by Nazi Sympathizers!

NO,Bush wanted to corner the oil market with the help of his cabinate and his PARTNER: OSAMA BIN LADEN

Others posted these.

So, why are some here so thin skinned that they can't take the same medicine they dish out?

Great fun huh?

posted April 24, 2004 01:47 AM            

You've been badmouthing the President, libel really and I just put some of your more libelous statements in one post. Thought I was doing you a favor since you so enjoyed what you were saying. This way, you can reread them without hunting and clicking through all the posts.

If I could Ozone, I'd give you a much bigger audience to preach your "I hate Bush" message to. In fact Ozone, if I could I'd give you an hour on a broadcast network---if you promised to not change a thing you've been saying. One hour of you with a national TV audience could swing the election all by itself.

My new sidekick? If you mean Isis, I sure hope so. She has a razor sharp mind and the cutest little..............

Cheers Ozone

Hey Isis, if you're my new sidekick, as Ozone suggests then please tell me where you got those cute little icons you've been posting. I want some too.

jwhop

posted April 24, 2004 02:34 AM            

...but really JW,tell ME something,why in the world would YOU want to give ME my own TV show,isn't it YOU that's in constant need for an approval from an audience? HMMMM!

And(to this day)I really can't fathom why so much you take the critizism that people have for Bush on such a personal level,but you manage to bash people(that have feelings toward him,as a president in a negative way and through they're own findings on the man),like as if your the one that's getting insulted,WHY?

I only figured that you would like someone like Isis,concidering the fact,that she has a bad habit of never understanding any kind of reason and replacing it only with "bad" impressions from infamous characters,but she knew how to pick you! RIGHT?

So tell tell JW,what ever happened to that sky rocketing, stock market BOOST, we were suppose to have (that was suppose to last us)throughout the rest of this year,hmmm?
Well, I guess the most of us "little ones" ended up with coal in our stockings and the others (I guess "big ones") had they're's filled up to the rim with NOSE CANDY!

posted April 24, 2004 04:41 AM            

This might sound completely off the mark to you, but I wasn't trying to be uncompassionate ... a little detached perhaps, but not cold and cruel or anything like that. If my posts sounded that way, perhaps it's because I was making an effort to not get riled up about it and/or take it personally/be offended. I disagreed, sure, but I never took offense (like, actually felt bad or hurt by anything he/she said), and I certainly didn't mean to offend him/her on a personal level. Actually, I was not trying to offend at all. I just wanted to understand what was really behind those words he/she wrote. I hoped there was more than what was implied. I realize I'm not the best writer or anything, but I think I made a decent effort in that respect.

Um, and I don't mean to start an argument here at all with you, ozonefiller, but you just cautioned me/us about compassionate consideration ... were you expressing that in your recent posts to jwhop? I'm not saying he(?) was or wasn't, but I'm curious about how you see your reaction. I realize we all make mistakes and don't always follow what we preach, so please don't think I'm being accusatory or whatever. I just want to know how you interpret your words and tone. Seriously.

posted April 24, 2004 05:48 AM            

quote:

---

you remind me of my kids when they used to complain that i would correct them, but not the other kids.

---

posted April 24, 2004 12:21 PM            

quote:

---

Before the votes were counted five Supremes stepped in.
Told all the voters "Hey, we want George to win."
"Stop counting votes!" was their solemn invocation.
And that's how George finally got his coronation.
Rigged, that is. Illegitimate. No moral authority.He's not the real President
Y'all come vote now. Ya hear?

---

Upon 4 or maybe even 5 different and separate recounts of the votes in contested counties, George Bush won every one. That put Algore in the position of challenging the county election officials of those counties who by the way are democrats. Got to love it.

It finally made it's way to the Florida Supreme Court where the Court decided a recount of the "undervote" should be undertaken. Since the Florida Supreme Court is the highest court authority in Florida, George Bush took the case to the US Supreme Court, challenging the "method(s)" to be used in the "undervote recount"

Following is a link to that US Supreme Court decision in full and selected text from that decision.

I doubt you will read it Ozone because:

1. You don't want the truth and
2. It would take away one of your whining points against the President.

This is being posted for all those who have heard the whining and moaning of the left that the President stole the 2000 Presidential election and that the US Supreme Court "gave" the election to George W. Bush. Perhaps some would like to know the truth.

The US Supreme Court "did not" stop the Florida vote recount. The Court "remanded"---"sent back" the issue to the Florida Supreme Court to consider rules for counting the "undervote" consistent with the guidelines the US Supreme Court laid out. Uniformity was the issue, under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Period!

At that point, Algore realized that if the very same standard had to be applied to every "undervote" to determine whether a vote for Gore or Bush or the voters intent was to not vote for President at all, then he would lose. None of that liberal "I feeeeel this is a vote for Algore" allowed.

Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html

The Florida Supreme Court has ordered that the intent of the voter be discerned from such ballots. For purposes of resolving the equal protection challenge,
it is not necessary to decide whether the Florida Supreme Court had the authority under the legislative scheme for resolving election disputes to define what a legal vote is and to mandate a manual recount implementing that definition. The recount mechanisms implemented in response to the decisions of the Florida Supreme Court do not satisfy the minimum requirement for non-arbitrary treatment of voters necessary to secure the fundamental right. Florida’s basic command for the count of legally cast votes is to consider the “intent of the voter.” Gore v. Harris, ___ So. 2d, at ___ (slip op., at 39). This is unobjectionable as an abstract proposition and a starting principle.[bThe problem inheres in the absence of specific standards to ensure its equal application. The formulation of uniform rules to determine intent based on these recurring circumstances is practicable and, we conclude, necessary.[/b]

The law does not refrain from searching for the intent of the actor in a multitude of circumstances; and in some cases the general command to ascertain intent is not susceptible to much further refinement. In this instance, however, the question is not whether to believe a witness but how to interpret the marks or holes or scratches on an inanimate object, a piece of cardboard or paper which, it is said, might not have registered as a vote during the machine count. The factfinder confronts a thing, not a person. The search for intent can be confined by specific rules designed to ensure uniform treatment.

The want of those rules here has led to unequal evaluation of ballots in various respects. See Gore v. Harris, ___ So. 2d, at ___ (slip op., at 51) (Wells, J., dissenting) (“Should a county canvassing board count or not count a ‘dimpled chad’ where the voter is able to successfully dislodge the chad in every other contest on that ballot? Here, the county canvassing boards disagree”). As seems to have been acknowledged at oral argument, the standards for accepting or rejecting contested ballots might vary not only from county to county but indeed within a single county from one recount team to another.

The record provides some examples. A monitor in Miami-Dade County testified at trial that he observed that three members of the county canvassing board applied different standards in defining a legal vote. 3 Tr. 497, 499 (Dec. 3, 2000). And testimony at trial also revealed that at least one county changed its evaluative standards during the counting process. Palm Beach County, for example, began the process with a 1990 guideline which precluded counting completely attached chads, switched to a rule that considered a vote to be legal if any light could be seen through a chad, changed back to the 1990 rule, and then abandoned any pretense of a per se rule, only to have a court order that the county consider dimpled chads legal. This is not a process with sufficient guarantees of equal treatment. Those Democrats

An early case in our one person, one vote jurisprudence arose when a State accorded arbitrary and disparate treatment to voters in its different counties. Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963). The Court found a constitutional violation. We relied on these principles in the context of the Presidential selection process in Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U.S. 814 (1969), where we invalidated a county-based procedure that diluted the influence of citizens in larger counties in the nominating process. There we observed that “[t]he idea that one group can be granted greater voting strength than another is hostile to the one man, one vote basis of our representative government.” Id., at 819.

The State Supreme Court ratified this uneven treatment. It mandated that the recount totals from two counties, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, be included in the certified total. The court also appeared to hold sub silentio that the recount totals from Broward County, which were not completed until after the original November 14 certification by the Secretary of State, were to be considered part of the new certified vote totals even though the county certification was not contested by Vice President Gore. Yet each of the counties used varying standards to determine what was a legal vote. Broward County used a more forgiving standard than Palm Beach County, and uncovered almost three times as many new votes, a result markedly disproportionate to the difference in population between the counties.

The question before the Court is not whether local entities, in the exercise of their expertise, may develop different systems for implementing elections. Instead, we are presented with a situation where a state court with the power to assure uniformity has ordered a statewide recount with minimal procedural safeguards. When a court orders a statewide remedy, there must be at least some assurance that the rudimentary requirements of equal treatment and fundamental fairness are satisfied.

Seven Justices of the Court agree that there are constitutional problems with the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court that demand a remedy. See post, at 6 (Souter, J., dissenting); post, at 2, 15 (Breyer, J., dissenting). The only disagreement is as to the remedy. Because the Florida Supreme Court has said that the Florida Legislature intended to obtain the safe-harbor benefits of 3 U.S.C. § 5 Justice Breyer’s proposed remedy–remanding to the Florida Supreme Court for its ordering of a constitutionally proper contest until December 18-contemplates action in violation of the Florida election code, and hence could not be part of an “appropriate” order authorized by Fla. Stat. §102.168(8) (2000).

None are more conscious of the vital limits on judicial authority than are the members of this Court, and none stand more in admiration of the Constitution’s design to leave the selection of the President to the people, through their legislatures, and to the political sphere. When contending parties invoke the process of the courts, however, it becomes our unsought responsibility to resolve the federal and constitutional issues the judicial system has been forced to confront. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Now Ozone, would you care to take up the issue you also raised that "Bush is an idiot"?

jwhop

posted April 24, 2004 03:09 PM            

Thanks for replying to my last question. I'll reread the thread and hope to find myself amused.

******

Tink
I believe I've also made the same statement as your grandma before here as well. I don't know what else to say. I certainly didn't think my troubles communicating with one person were going to become the issue of controversy, instead of the issues I was trying to understand, and the fluff I was trying to dig through. I believe I've been given the ill credit of causing someone to refrain from posting here already. I hope I haven't caused you to stop posting as well, Tink. Perhaps I just really enjoy debating with people, but I certainly didn't intend to start some kind of crazy free-for-all bash session or something like that which is what some folks think this is.

posted April 24, 2004 04:02 PM            

Much more likely is what I said about his/her lack of observable compassion and sympathy for people living and dying under the brutal heel of a ruthless dictator.

I got tired of hearing the refrain that Raine has all that enlightened and evolved compassion and sympathy for others and by implication and inference, others here don't, me included.

True compassion and sympathy is not selective or situational. Neither does it consist of talking about it, wearing a special ribbon or button with a phrase, hunger, homelessness etc. It exhibits itself in action not talk. Substance over form.

posted April 24, 2004 04:17 PM            

ANYWAY

Great news my friend,since you like siff threw my more "bad press" of my posts(rather then taking the time to watch the movies that I've posted in the past)I got this actical from Greg Palast AND with more detail on the very subject that you chose to like to stike up with me,this is it:

Silence Of The Lambs:
The Election Story Never Told

By Greg Palast
Here's how the president of the United States was elected: In the months leading up to the November balloting, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, ordered local elections supervisors to purge 64,000 voters from voter lists on the grounds that they were felons who were not entitled to vote in Florida. As it turns out, these voters weren't felons, or at least, only a very few were. However, the voters on this "scrub list" were, notably, African-American (about 54 percent), while most of the others wrongly barred from voting were white and Hispanic Democrats.

Beginning in November, this extraordinary news ran, as it should, on Page 1 of the country's leading paper. Unfortunately, it was in the wrong country: Britain. In the United States, it ran on page zero — that is, the story was not covered on the news pages. The theft of the presidential race in Florida also was given big television network coverage. But again, it was on the wrong continent: on BBC television, London.

Was this some off-the-wall story that the Brits misreported? A lawyer for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission called it the first hard evidence of a systematic attempt to disenfranchise black voters; the commission held dramatic hearings on the evidence. While the story was absent from America's news pages (except, I grant, a story in the Orlando Sentinel and another on C-Span), columnists for The New York Times, Boston Globe and Washington Post cited the story after seeing a U.S. version on the Internet magazine Salon.com. As the reporter on the story for Britain's Guardian newspaper (and its Sunday edition, The Observer) and for BBC television, I was interviewed on several American radio programs, generally "alternative" stations on the left side of the dial.

Interviewers invariably asked the same two questions, "Why was this story uncovered by a British reporter?" And, "Why was it published in and broadcast from Europe?"

I'd like to know the answer myself. That way I could understand why I had to move my family to Europe in order to print and broadcast this and other crucial stories about the American body politic in mainstream media. The bigger question is not about the putative brilliance of the British press. I'd rather ask how a hundred thousand U.S. journos failed to get the vote theft story and print it (and preferably before the election).

Think about "investigative" reporting. The best investigative stories are expensive to produce, risky and upset the wisdom of the established order. Do profit-conscious enterprises, whether media companies or widget firms, seek extra costs, extra risk and the opportunity to be attacked? Not in any business text I've ever read. I can't help but note that the Guardian and Observer is the world's only leading newspaper owned by a not-for-profit corporation, as is BBC television.

But if profit-lust is the ultimate problem blocking significant investigative reportage, the more immediate cause of comatose coverage of the election and other issues is what is laughably called America's "journalistic culture." If the Rupert Murdochs of the globe are shepherds of the new world order, they owe their success to breeding a flock of docile sheep, the editors and reporters snoozy and content with munching on, digesting, then reprinting a diet of press releases and canned stories provided by officials and corporation public relations operations.

Take this story of the list of Florida's faux felons that cost Al Gore the election. Shortly after the UK and Salon stories hit the worldwide web, I was contacted by a CBS network news producer ready to run their own version of the story. The CBS hotshot was happy to pump me for information: names, phone numbers, all the items one needs for a quickie TV story.

I also freely offered up to CBS this information: The office of the governor of Florida, brother of the Republican presidential candidate, had illegally ordered the removal of the names of felons from voter rolls — real felons, but with the right to vote under Florida law. As a result, thousands of these legal voters, almost all Democrats, would not be allowed to vote.

One problem: I had not quite completed my own investigation on this matter. Therefore CBS would have to do some actual work, reviewing documents and law, and obtaining statements. The next day I received a call from the producer, who said, "I'm sorry, but your story didn't hold up." Well, how did the multibillion-dollar CBS network determine this? Why, "we called Jeb Bush's office." Oh. And that was it.

I wasn't surprised by this type of "investigation." It is, in fact, standard operating procedure for the little lambs of American journalism. One good, slick explanation from a politician or corporate chieftain and it's case closed, investigation over. The story ran anyway: on BBC-TV. Let's understand the pressures on the CBS producer that led her to kill the story on the basis of a denial by the target of the allegations. (Though let's not confuse understanding with forgiveness.)

First, the story is difficult to tell in the usual 90 seconds allotted for national reports. The BBC gave me a 14-minute slot to explain it.

Second, the story required massive and quick review of documents, hundreds of phone calls and interviews, hardly a winner in the slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am school of U.S. journalism. The BBC gave me two weeks to develop the story.

Third, the revelations in the story required a reporter to stand up and say the big name politicians, their lawyers and their PR people were freaking liars. It would be much easier, and a heck of a lot cheaper, to wait for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission to do the work, then cover the Commission's canned report and press conference. Wait! You've watched "Murphy Brown," so you think reporters hanker every day to uncover the big scandal. ******** . Remember, "All the President's Men" was so unusual they had to make a movie out of it.

Fourth, investigative reports require taking a chance. Fraudsters and vote-riggers don't reveal all their evidence. And they lie. Make the allegation and you are open to attack, or unknown information that may prove you wrong. No one ever lost their job writing canned statements from a press conference.

Fifth — and this is no small matter — no one ever got sued for not running an investigative story. Let me give you an example close to home. The companion report to my investigation of the theft of the election in Florida was a story about Bush family finances. I wrote in the Guardian and Observer of London about the gold-mining company for which the first President George Bush worked after he left the White House. Oh, you didn't know that George H. W. Bush worked for a gold-mining company after he lost to Bill Clinton in 1992? Well, maybe it has to do with the fact that this company has a long history of suing every paper that breathes a word it does not like — in fact, it has now sued my papers. I've gotten awards and thousands of letters for these stories, but, honey, that don't pay the legal bills.

Finally, there's another little matter working against U.S. reporters running after the hard stories, papers printing them or TV broadcasting the good stuff. I'll explain by way of my phone call with a great reporter, Mike Isikoff of Newsweek. Just before the elections, Isikoff handed me some exceptionally important information about President Clinton, material suggesting corruption in office — the real stuff, not the interns-under-the-desk stuff. I said, "Mike, why the hell don't you run it yourself?" and he said, "Because no one gives a **** !" Isikoff was expressing his exasperation with the news chiefs who kill or bury these stories on page 200 on the belief that the public really doesn't want to hear all this bad and very un-sexy news. These lambchop editors believe the public just doesn't care.

But they're wrong. When I ran my first story in the London Observer about the theft of the Florida vote, Americans by the thousands flooded our Internet site. They set a record for hits before the information-hungry hordes blew down our giant server computers. When BBC ran the story, viewership of the webcast of Newsnight grew by 10,000 percent as a result of Americans demanding to see what they were denied on their own tubes. Obviously, some Americans care.

And it's for them that I say, This is Greg Palast reporting from exile.

— Investigative reporter and MediaChannel advisor Greg Palast (gregory.palast@guardian.co.uk) writes a fortnightly column, Inside Corporate America, for The Observer of London (Guardian Media Group). His stories about the purge of Florida voters are collected on his Web site, www.GregPalast.com.

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Tell me something JW,
You pride yourself of being anti-left,but YOU insist that critizing "my" president should be (almost like)unlawful,don't you think that maybe that could be a little bit of... COMMUNIST THINKING?

posted April 24, 2004 04:37 PM            

I find it ironic how, when the Poster Boy for the Democratic Party was in office, and the right made allegations that the media was liberal-controlled, you heard not a peep from the left. Now that a Repub is in office, it's hilarious that the left is making the same allegations - it's apparently ok for the media to be allegedly "govt controlled" when one of their own is in office, but if their arch nemisis is in office (read: anyone who's not a Dem), they scream bloody murder (and incidentally I personally think, with the exception of Fox, the news is totally and unadulteratedly leftist). Once again, hypocracy at its best, courtesy of the left (disclaimer: the left at large, that statement was not referring to any individual here).