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Machine politics

by Mark Gisleson

Plamegate was all over the news this weekend, but we've covered most of this ground in this blog already so I'll just link to my frontpage blog entry which has beaucoup links on this matter. For daddy's opinion on this kind of stuff, scroll to the bottom of the post for the Quote of the Day.

Without getting too deep into the particulars, I do think it's interesting that it has taken this long to get the major media to seriously cover this story. Even Howard Kurtz has taken notice of the time lag:

When syndicated columnist Robert Novak reported on July 14 that "two senior administration officials" had told him that the wife of a prominent White House critic did undercover work for the CIA, it barely caused a ripple.

Former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV talked about the leak in interviews and at the National Press Club soon after, telling Newsday the message was "that if you talk, we'll take your family and drag them through the mud." Nation writer David Corn called the leak a "thuggish act," and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called it a "criminal act." After Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for an investigation, the New York Times, Washington Post and Buffalo News ran inside-the-paper stories.

But it was not until this weekend's reports that the CIA has asked the Justice Department to examine the matter that the story hit the front page of The Washington Post and the Sunday talk shows, sparking questions not just about White House motives but about media conduct.

[more]

I think the "blogosphere" was overly impressed with itself after the ousting of Trent Lott, but in the case of Plamegate, I think everyone owes David Corn, Joshua Micah Marshall, Mark A.R. Kleiman and others a big debt of gratitude. And to think, once upon a time the major media was capable of breaking news stories all by themselves. Makes you wonder what they missed then. (Here's one under-reported story Josh Marshall has uncovered that has some bearing on the present mess.)

If you hurry, you can also check out the Cursor links to more Plamegate stories, and Billmon analyzes the situation with the five anonymous journalists who are currently sitting on the identity(ies) of the leaker(s).

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Hesiod over at Counterspin has a counterquote to go with Wes Clark's widely touted pro-Republican quotes:

"I've know Wes Clark for 20 years. He's one of the most gifted soldiers that I have ever had work for me."

— Colin Powell

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Diebold, Bev Harris, and electronic voting. If this isn't on your political radar yet (and this has been widely reported online), be sure to read Buzzflash's interview with Harris. Here are a few of the many highlights:

When a system that belongs to the public becomes secret, it becomes doubly important to make sure we can completely trust those who run it. Voting machine companies are not required to tell us who owns them. Two of the top six firms have been foreign-owned: Election.com, owned by the Saudis until an acquisition by Accenture recently, and Sequoia, now owned by DeLaRue (Great Britain). Three of the top six firms have owners and/or directors who represent vested interests....

Diebold, the second largest voting machine company. CEO is Wally O'Dell, who recently visited George W. Bush at his Crawford ranch along with an elite group of Bush supporters called the "Rangers" and "Pioneers.” Days later, he penned a letter to Ohio Republicans promising to help "deliver the votes" for Bush. O'Dell sponsored a $600,000 fund raiser for Dick Cheney in July. Diebold director W.H. Timken is also a Bush Pioneer....

Voting systems have always had people trying to rig them, with varying degrees of success. What has changed is scale. Whereas it used to be that one had to run around bribing someone to shave the wheel on each lever machine, or collect up ballot boxes and stuff them in a trunk, nowadays a programmer can, essentially invisibly, create a back door into the vote system for millions of votes at once. Whereas vote-rigging has always required physical access before, modems and wireless communications devices now open up possibilities for remote vote rigging that no one can observe....

The voting industry is spending literally millions of dollars, and going through amazing feats of contorted logic that can best be described as marketing gymnastics, to convince us that we should discontinue proper auditing. They want us to eliminate the ballot which you verify, and trust the secret system instead.

[More]

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A final quote from one of my favorite revolutionaries to end today's post:

"Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice."

— John Adams

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UPDATE: Depending on when you read this you may have to scroll down, but Steve Gilliard has a great Plamegate analysis up that makes the definitive case for Dick Cheney, not Karl Rove. Interesting.

UPDATE: National Review Online is now claiming that Valerie Plame's status as a CIA operative was well known. If that's really the case, it doesn't say much for this administration that such information is bandied about so casually.

UPDATE: The WaPost has just uploaded an online Q&A with Walter Pincus. Needless to say, the questions focus on Plamegate. Also, Drudge plays fire extinguisher and tries to defuse the Novak angle with full cooperation from the Prince of Darkness.

Posted by Steve Perry at September 29, 2003 10:16 AM

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