Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Ohio Recount Outrage
The American Spectator ^ | 12/13/2004 | Paul M. Weyrich

Posted on 12/13/2004 9:06:17 AM PST by RepCath

WASHINGTON -- There once was a time when the Rev. Jesse Jackson intervened in instances of genuine injustice. At that time there was racial discrimination on a variety of fronts. I have never been a fan but I have to concede that he once did some good. That was then and this is now. Today Jackson seems to be continually in search of a cause, and seldom finds one that requires his presence.

Jackson is in Ohio, where liberals have raised enough money to fund a recount in the Presidential race. It was Ohio which put President Bush over the top in the Electoral College. That the President carried the state by approximately 117,000 votes is something that the far left cannot accept. Therefore, they are now inventing all sorts of problems which supposedly occurred during the 2004 elections.

It doesn't hinder Jackson and his compatriots that the Secretary of State of Ohio is a black man, Ken Blackwell. Do they actually think that Blackwell wants to suppress the Black vote? Then again Blackwell is a Republican, and from the far-left vantage point all Republicans want to prevent Blacks from voting.

(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; Extended News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: ohio; recount

1 posted on 12/13/2004 9:06:18 AM PST by RepCath
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: RepCath

good posting


2 posted on 12/13/2004 9:08:37 AM PST by traderrob6
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RepCath

Jesse Jackson is a racial ambulance chaser. He's just trying to manipulate the situation in Ohio. Even his son says that Bush won.


3 posted on 12/13/2004 9:09:12 AM PST by Perdogg (W stands for Winner)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RepCath
Money Quote:
Jackson and his comrades can't complain this year as they did in 2000 that Bush was selected (by the Supreme Court), not elected.

They can't complain, as they did in 2000, that Bush only won the Electoral College and not the popular vote. Bush won approximately three and a half million more votes than did Senator John Kerry.

They can't complain, as they did in 2000, that Bush got favorable media attention. This election the major media wasn't just biased against Bush, it had a clear agenda the defeat of the President of the United States.

Therefore, with nothing to complain about, with the Red States having made a clear statement to the Blue States, the Jackson crowd has to gin up problems so they can have a basis for questioning the outcome of the 2004 election.

I suppose they could complain about not having a decent controversy to complain about.

Gum

4 posted on 12/13/2004 9:09:42 AM PST by ChewedGum (aka King of Fools)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RepCath
Overwelming bad news for liberals translates to severely diminished future earnings to such people.

There is panic among liberals who made a living by fecal stirring and collecting a fee for it.

5 posted on 12/13/2004 9:10:31 AM PST by blackdog (May Islam meet Tennyson's "Ninth Wave" in my lifetime.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RepCath

Jesse Jackass is a joke. He probably heard that White people voted on Tuesday, November 2nd and blacks were supposed to vote on Wednesday, November 3rd. Maybe he got the same emails that we did.


6 posted on 12/13/2004 9:10:36 AM PST by TommyDale
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RepCath

>>>Rev. Jesse Jackson<<<<

Nothing to do with the Ohio recount. I just don't like Jesse Jackson.

Jesse, Liberia and Blood Diamonds
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
Insight Magazine | July 25, 2003

With the Congressional Black Caucus clamoring for President George W. Bush to dispatch U.S. troops to Liberia, after having voted almost unanimously against the U.S. war in Iraq, the president and his national-security team are weighing the costs of joining a multinational peacekeeping force in a nation that has ripped through several of them during the last decade. One thing neither Bush nor the Congressional Black Caucus is talking about publicly, however, is how Liberia began this latest phase of its spiraling descent into chaos.

And for good reason. The current crisis was in part the creation of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Democratic Party activist who claims to champion the rights of Africans to self-governance. As special envoy for democracy and human rights in Africa, starting in October 1997, Jackson was President Bill Clinton's point man for Africa. It was Jackson who spearheaded Clinton's 10-day African safari in March 1998, at a cost to taxpayers of $42.8 million. And it was Jackson who legitimated Liberian strongman Charles Taylor and his protégé, the machete-wielding militia leader in neighboring Sierra Leone, Cpl. Foday Sankoh. Without Jackson's active intervention, both leaders were headed toward international isolation and sanction. Thanks to Jackson, both retained power to murder another day.

At Jackson's prompting, Clinton made an unprecedented phone call to Taylor from Air Force One while flying over Africa. Until then the United States had shunned Taylor because of his grisly past. Among Taylor's many "accomplishments" were the murder of American Catholic nuns in Liberia and the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia.

The mainstream media has resolutely ignored Jackson's involvement in the diamond wars of Liberia and Sierra Leone, and he never has been hauled before a congressional committee to account for this behavior [see Kenneth R. Timmerman's New York Times best seller, Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson (Regnery Publishing, March 2002)].

Jackson first met Taylor in Monrovia on Feb. 11, 1998, thanks to the intercession of an old friend, a Liberian named Romeo Horton who had become a close aide to Taylor. Taylor had just been elected president of Liberia after a campaign riddled with intimidation in which he sent his infamous "Small Boys Units" throughout the countryside, waving their machetes at anyone who refused to vote for their man. But instead of hectoring Taylor on human rights and democracy - after all, that was Jackson's brief - Jackson embraced the Liberian strongman, as shown in a State Department after-action memo obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

"During his 24 hours in Liberia, the Rev. Jackson met several times privately with President Taylor and appeared to establish a strong personal bond with him," the April 29, 1998, memo from the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia reads. "After Jesse Jackson's visit, President Taylor went out of his way to stress that Liberia is America's best friend in Africa, and that it was time to improve the bilateral relationship - a 180-degree change in direction from the public posture of the Taylor government before the Jackson visit."

In neighboring Sierra Leone, Sankoh and his Revolutionary United Front (RUF) militia had massacred tens of thousands of civilians and, teamed with disgruntled military officers, had driven elected president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah into exile. Jackson said in an interview that he considered Sankoh and Taylor to be like the gang leaders in Chicago, who could be "redeemed" by his careful ministrations. Rather than confront them, Jackson befriended them, over the howls of the State Department professionals.

"Secretary [of State Madeleine] Albright delegated Africa policy to [U.S. Rep. Donald] Payne [of New Jersey] and the Congressional Black Caucus," Sierra Leone's outspoken ambassador to Washington, John Ernest Leigh, told this reporter. A House International Affairs Committee staffer who followed Jackson's meetings with Taylor put it more bluntly: "The whole effort under Clinton was to mainstream Charles Taylor, and Jesse Jackson had a lot to do with it."

Just two months after his first meeting with Taylor, Jackson played host to a "reconciliation conference" at his Operation PUSH headquarters in Chicago. It was meant to drum up support for Taylor in the United States and to portray him as a modern democratic leader. Taylor appeared on a huge video screen that dominated the stage, while Jackson chirped, "It's morning time in Liberia."

Harry A. Greaves, a Taylor opponent who helped found the Liberia Action Party, called Jackson's conference "a PR exercise by Charles Taylor. The general perception in the Liberian community was that Jackson was a paid lobbyist for Charles Taylor." Jackson insisted to me that he "got absolutely no money from the government of Liberia" to play host to the conference. But Jackson had tried to exclude the opposition from the conference entirely, until Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Howard Jeter telephoned Jackson and insisted otherwise.

"If there are any adversaries who are not ready to reconcile, please leave the room," Jackson told the auditorium. He then demanded that Liberians stop using the Internet to publish information on Taylor's atrocities. "The international community frequents the Internet and takes note of whatever information is disseminated on the information superhighway," he said. "So, please stay off the Net."

In September, just five months after the "reconciliation" Jackson hosted in Chicago, Taylor's Special Security Service went on a killing rampage in an effort to track down and eliminate rival warlord Roosevelt Johnson, an ethnic Krahn whom Taylor accused of plotting a coup. When Johnson sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy, Taylor's men gunned him down in the entryway, wounding two embassy employees. The State Department was not amused, and asked Jackson to reprimand Taylor by phone. No record of what Jackson actually said was released but, in November 1998, during another visit to the region, Jesse again treated Taylor as a statesman.

With help from Britain and Nigeria (but not from Jackson), Sierra Leone's elected president Kabbah managed to return to power in March 1998. Sankoh's RUF guerrillas were forced back into the bush, and Sankoh himself was arrested, tried for treason and sentenced to death. It all could have ended there - if it hadn't been for Jackson, who intervened with Kabbah to get the death sentence against Sankoh lifted.

In January 1999, Sankoh's troops went on another killing spree and launched an offensive that brought them into the streets of Freetown. A West African peacekeeping force led by Nigeria managed to drive the rebels out of the capital and fought them to a stalemate. Again, it could have ended there if it hadn't been for Jackson's active intervention.

In May 1999, Jackson decided it was time to reinvent Sankoh, whose troops now controlled Sierra Leone's rich diamond mines. By this point, the United Nations and private investigators had published detailed reports on how Sankoh and Taylor were using "blood diamonds" to fuel West Africa's civil and regional wars, leading to international controls on the diamond trade. On the margins of a conference in nearby Ghana, Jackson "kidnapped" Kabbah, according to Kabbah advisers I interviewed for my book, and flew him to neighboring Lomé, Togo, where Jackson forced him to sign a cease-fire with Sankoh. "We had not expected or planned that agreement," former assistant secretary of state Susan E. Rice tells Insight, "or that Jackson would have a role in it." The impression among African policymakers at State was, she says, "Where did this come from?"

In July, under the terms of a power-sharing agreement that Jackson helped negotiate and which Kabbah vigorously resisted, Sankoh was released from house arrest, made a vice president in a new national-unity government and put in charge of Sierra Leone's diamond mines.

Now in government, Sankoh began smuggling out thousands of diamonds, many of which he sent to Taylor in Liberia in exchange for weapons. Jackson repeatedly raised the issue of the illicit diamond trade and the clandestine arms supplies with Taylor, who simply denied the charges, the State Department transcripts show. Jackson never pressed him further.

Jackson maintained direct contact with Sankoh after the Lomé accords were signed, telephoning him repeatedly with words of encouragement and promising him a "full pardon." Braced by Jackson's support, Sankoh and his RUF fighters built up their forces, thanks to the diamond trade, ignoring Jackson's pleas to disarm and give peace a chance. New fighting broke out in January 2000 in the hinterland. The cease-fire Jackson brokered lasted less than six months. By May the fighting took on crisis proportions when Sankoh's fighters murdered U.N. peacekeepers and took 500 of them hostage. Meanwhile Liberia, which produces no diamonds, reported that it had exported $300 million worth of the precious stones the previous year.

Jackson made one final attempt to halt the bloodshed in mid-May 2000. He tried in vain to cajole Taylor to "negotiate" an end to the hostage crisis, since Taylor was widely (and correctly) viewed as godfather of the RUF and as Sankoh's arms and diamond broker. In one telephone conversation with Taylor, on May 7, 2000, Jackson gushed: "Brother Taylor, word is coming through that you are playing a constructive role. Two or three wire-service stories. Congratulations! Your public leadership is important."

When challenged by African reporters during a May 12, 2000, press conference as to why he was relying on Taylor and Sankoh to get the U.N. hostages released, when in fact they had orchestrated the hostage crisis themselves, Jackson said, "There is blood on everybody's hands and no clean hands. If Charles Taylor can talk to the [RUF] commanders and they hear that, that would be positive. It would be different if he were encouraging fighting, but he is not."

Then Jackson made a blunder that would make him an object of ridicule and scorn across Africa: He compared Sankoh to former African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, who went on to become president of South Africa. On May 16, Jackson was all set to take off for Sierra Leone when an urgent message came into the State Department, warning that Jackson could be assaulted physically should he attempt to land. Foreign Minister Sama Banya even went on state radio in Freetown, urging Jackson to stay away. "When people in Freetown heard Jesse Jackson's statement comparing Foday Sankoh to Nelson Mandela, they were up in arms," recalls Sierra Leone Ambassador Leigh. "Comparing Nelson Mandela to a guy who was ripping arms off of babies was the biggest insult to Africa you could think of. Jesse Jackson destroyed the credibility of the United States."

During a conference call to leaders in Freetown, Jackson tried to retract his earlier statements but was openly attacked as a RUF "collaborator." One local journalist wrote bitterly that Jackson was known as a civil-rights leader in the United States, but that in Africa he was better known as a "killer's-rights" leader.

Arriving in Monrovia, Liberia, on May 17, 2000, Jackson declared, "President Taylor has been doing a commendable job negotiating for the release of the hostages. All the hostages should be freed and freed now. There is no basis for delay, there is no basis for negotiations." Jackson's comments would have been laughable were it not for the quantities of innocent blood that had been shed, thanks to his self-serving misbehavior.

By this point, the State Department had suffered enough of Jackson's alleged diplomacy and the failed agreement he had brokered. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker declared on June 5, 2000, that the United States was "not part of that agreement." Jackson summarily was fired as Clinton's special envoy shortly afterward.

But the Clinton State Department is not innocent in this affair. In a series of dispatches and briefing documents stamped "Secret," which the State Department declassified at this reporter's request, it is clear that Assistant Secretary of State Rice, an Albright protégé, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Jeter primed Jackson with intelligence, talking points and background papers throughout the entire three-year period he was Clinton's envoy. Indeed, the entire bureaucracy of U.S. diplomacy was put at Jackson's disposal with tragic results.

However, it also is clear that Jackson repeatedly took initiatives on his own, especially when it came to forging that strong personal bond with the Liberian dictator.

The United States and the citizens of West Africa now have a historic opportunity with the war-crimes indictment against Taylor that was released in June by the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. Taylor is seeking asylum in neighboring Nigeria, but already voices are being raised among Liberian opposition politicians and their U.S. supporters that he should not be allowed to escape prosecution.

Among the first questions they believe prosecutors should ask Taylor is who he paid off using Sankoh's diamonds. U.S. intelligence officers and their assets on the ground in Liberia reported back to Washington concerning these payoffs at the very moment that Jackson was negotiating a favorable role for Taylor and for Sankoh in Lomé, former CIA officers and other sources have told this reporter.

Who received the diamonds, how they were brokered onto the international marketplace in Europe and where the cash proceeds went remain mysteries. Charles Taylor knows many of the answers.


7 posted on 12/13/2004 9:10:54 AM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RepCath
There once was a time when the Rev. Jesse Jackson intervened in instances of genuine injustice

I wouldn't give Jackson that much credit. He's always been a race pimp and a hustler, moving more recently to corporate extortion.

8 posted on 12/13/2004 9:12:55 AM PST by skip_intro
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RepCath
They've gone insane. Now is a good time to crank up the mocking of the lefties in order to reveal to the world what a bunch of unstable nutjobs the left TRULY consist of.
9 posted on 12/13/2004 9:15:29 AM PST by Tempest (Click on my name for a long list of press contacts)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: skip_intro

I saw him hanging around the OTC (Offshore Tech. Conferece) exhibits in Houston a few years ago and wondered out loud "what the hell is JJ doing here?". A friend of mine pointed out the obvious...since the oil biz. transacts hundreds of millions of $$$ every year, there HAS to be some loot for JJ to mine, somewhere, somehow.


10 posted on 12/13/2004 9:22:18 AM PST by cweese
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: RepCath
I suspect there are a number of reasons that some liberals want a recount in Ohio.

Some are likely delusional and believe that it will change the results.

Some, like Jesse Jackson just need to stir up controversy because that's how they make their living.

Some are looking to the 2006 Ohio Governor's race for which Blackwell is expected to be a strong contender for the Republican candidate.

Even though we've had republicans in the Governor's seat for a long time, they have been very liberal Republicans.

I bet there are a lot of Democrats, and even some liberal Republicans who aren't happy with the idea that Blackwell may run for Governor, and would like to see him end up with some embarrassment over the election.
11 posted on 12/13/2004 9:25:22 AM PST by untrained skeptic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tempest

Maybe these lefties didn't get enough oxygen when they were young...to many neurons destroyed with drugs...like that...


12 posted on 12/13/2004 9:26:25 AM PST by Edgerunner (The left ain't right. Hand me that launch pickle...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Calpernia

Kevin Nealon: Theodore Geisel, known to his loyal readers as Dr. Suess, died this week at age 87. Like many of us, I grew up with Dr. Suess, and one of my favorite stories is "Green Eggs and Ham". Here to read from this classic, is the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Reverand?

Jesse Jackson: Tonight, rather than read from First and Second Samuel, I read from Sam I Am, according to the latter day saint Suess.

"You do not like green eggs and ham?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
I do not like green eggs and ham.

I could not, would not, on a boat.
I will not, will not, with a goat.
I will not eat them in the rain.
I will not eat them on a train.
Not in the dark! Not in a tree!
Not in a car! You let me be!

I do not like them in a box.
I do not like them with a fox.
I will not eat them in a house.
I do not like them with a mouse.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them ANYWHERE!
I do not like green eggs and ham!
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

You do not like them.
So you say.
Try them! Try them!
And you may.
Try them and you may, I say.

Sam!
If you will let me be, I will try them.
You will see.

Say!
I like green eggs and ham!
I do! I like them, Sam-I-am!
And I would eat them in a boat.
And I would eat them with a goat...

I do so like
green eggs and ham!
Thank you!
Thank you,
Sam-I-am!"


13 posted on 12/13/2004 9:32:26 AM PST by CollegeRepublican
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: ChewedGum
The Party Line response of the Liberals is that Conservatives...ergo Red Staters... are Dumb.

We need to be broadly disseminating Ann Coulter's book SLANDER, wherein she diagrams the Liberal rhetorical playbook...


14 posted on 12/13/2004 9:45:54 AM PST by Paul Ross (Proud Member Pajamahadeen: Outing traitors, fifth columnists and appeasers until the cows come home.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: CollegeRepublican

15 posted on 12/13/2004 10:19:40 AM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: RepCath
"The Ohio Recount Outrage "

It's not an outrage, it's a joke. American voters are not stupid and the recount efforts will just marginalize the leftists even further.

16 posted on 12/13/2004 10:19:59 AM PST by tom h
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CollegeRepublican
My wife will not let me read Green Eggs and Ham to our son because I have threatened to do so impersonating Je$$e. Was that an SNL skit? I seem to remember it from somewhere, but am not sure where.
17 posted on 12/13/2004 10:21:32 AM PST by RebelBanker (Negotiate? [BANG] Anyone else want to negotiate?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: RebelBanker

It was back during Bush 41 admin. And Jesse actually read Green Eggs and Ham on SNL.


18 posted on 12/13/2004 10:49:38 AM PST by CollegeRepublican
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: RebelBanker

I think it was! Wasn't he on just after he dropped out of the race in 1984? Somewhere around there. Could it really be so long ago?


19 posted on 12/13/2004 10:50:10 AM PST by cvq3842
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: RepCath

Kerry is/was an illegal candidate per
US Constitution 14th Amendment Section 3
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1300479/posts


20 posted on 12/13/2004 11:20:54 AM PST by 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub (Why do 99 US Senators allow a traitor in their midst? Why is main stream right wing media silent?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson