Bush's stolen election: the anti-Castro Cuban Connection
by Karen Lee Wald, October 29, 2004

"The Clinton administration willingness to defy Miami's Cuban-American community in the case of Elian Gonzales was widely seen as a sign that the community had lost its political muscle. But the decision to stop recounting votes in Miami-Dade suggests that it's the Cuban Americans who are getting the last word."[...]

"The crowds that menaced the [Miami-Dade] Canvassing Board [so they couldn't continue the recount]and roughed up a Democratic official had been summoned by Radio Mambi, one of Miami's most stridently anti-communist Cuban radio stations. Radio Mambi played a similar role mustering the crowds who attempted to prevent Elian Gonzales from being reunited with his father." (see the rest of the article below) 

The New Yorker broke tradition and came out in favor of a political candidate because Bush is so terrible. The important lines in their editorial, in relation to Cuba, are:

The heightened emotions of the [current] race that (with any luck) will end on November 2, 2004, are rooted in the events of three previous Tuesdays. On Tuesday, November 7, 2000, more than a hundred and five million Americans went to the polls and, by a small but indisputable plurality, voted to make Al Gore President of the United States. Because of the way the votes were distributed, however, the outcome in the electoral college turned on the outcome in Florida. In that state, George W. Bush held a lead of some five hundred votes, one one-thousandth of Gore’s national margin; irregularities, and there were many, all had the effect of taking votes away from Gore; and the state’s electoral machinery was in the hands of Bush’s brother, who was the governor, and one of Bush’s state campaign co-chairs, who was the Florida secretary of state.

Bush sued to stop any recounting of the votes, and, on Tuesday, December 12th, the United States Supreme Court gave him what he wanted. Bush v. Gore was so shoddily reasoned and transparently partisan that the five justices who endorsed the decision declined to put their names on it, while the four dissenters did not bother to conceal their disgust. There are rules for settling electoral disputes of this kind, in federal and state law and in the Constitution itself. By ignoring them—by cutting off the process and installing Bush by fiat—the Court made a mockery not only of popular democracy but also of constitutional republicanism.

A result so inimical to both majority rule and individual civic equality was bound to inflict damage on the fabric of comity. But the damage would have been far less severe if the new President had made some effort to take account of the special circumstances of his election—in the composition of his Cabinet, in the way that he pursued his policy goals, perhaps even in the goals themselves. He made no such effort. According to Bob Woodward in “Plan of Attack,” Vice-President Dick Cheney put it this way: “From the very day we walked in the building, a notion of sort of a restrained presidency because it was such a close election, that lasted maybe thirty seconds. It was not contemplated for any length of time. We had an agenda, we ran on that agenda, we won the election—full speed ahead.”

The new President’s main order of business was to push through Congress a program of tax reductions overwhelmingly skewed to favor the very rich. The policies he pursued through executive action, such as weakening environmental protection and cutting off funds for international family-planning efforts, were mostly unpopular outside what became known (in English, not Arabic) as “the base,” which is to say the conservative movement and, especially, its evangelical component. The President’s enthusiastic embrace of that movement was such that, four months into the Administration, the defection of a moderate senator from Vermont, Jim Jeffords, cost his party control of the Senate. And, four months after that, the President’s political fortunes appeared to be coasting into a gentle but inexorable decline. Then came the blackest Tuesday of all.

September 11, 2001, brought with it one positive gift: a surge of solidarity, global and national—solidarity with and solidarity within the United States. This extraordinary outpouring provided Bush with a second opportunity to create something like a government of national unity. Again, he brushed the opportunity aside, choosing to use the political capital handed to him by Osama bin Laden to push through more elements of his un-mandated domestic program [include appointments like Mel Martinez as Housing Secretary and Batista's grandson as a federal judge!]

A year after 9/11, in the midterm elections, he increased his majority in the House and recaptured control of the Senate by portraying selected Democrats as friends of terrorism. Is it any wonder that the anger felt by many Democrats is even greater than can be explained by the profound differences in outlook between the two candidates and their parties?

The Bush Administration has had success in carrying out its policies and implementing its intentions, aided by majorities—political and, apparently, ideological—in both Houses of Congress. Substantively, however, its record has been one of failure, arrogance, and—strikingly for a team that prided itself on crisp professionalism—incompetence. [You can read the rest of the New Yorker editorial yourself -- probably have. My point here is that the halting of the vote recount is what led to all the rest -- and that was physically done, first, by the people Cubans on the Island call "The Miami Mafia"....the same ones and their descendants who ran Cuba's dirty politics before the Revolution...See the following article:

Jinn: An online zine from Pacific News Service

 

Miami's Cuban Americans May Get The Last Word

By Peter Dale Scott

Date: 12-04-00

The Clinton administration willingness to defy Miami's Cuban-American community in the case of Elian Gonzales was widely seen as a sign that the community had lost its political muscle. But the decision to stop recounting votes in Miami-Dade suggests that it's the Cuban Americans who are getting the last word. PNS correspondent Peter Dale Scott is author of Deep Politics and the Death of JFK and co-author of Cocaine Politics. Scott's website is http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott.

The Clinton administration's hard-nosed action in returning six-year-old Elian Gonzales to his family in Cuba was widely interpreted as a sign that Miami's Cuban American community was losing its political clout.

But in fact bitterness over that action may have cost Al Gore the presidency -- even though he broke with the administration over the decision to let Elian return home.

The Miami-Dade refusal to recount votes can certainly be seen as one more blow in the fight over Elian that supposedly ended last spring.

Miami Mayor Alex Penelas led the Cuban American revolt against the Justice Department last spring. Elections supervisor David Leahy of the Miami-Dade Canvassing Board, who voted to stop the recount, works for Mr. Penelas.

The Canvassing Board's two other members, Lawrence King and Myriam Lehr, who joined in the vote, are both elected county judges who must be sensitive to the opinions of their Cuban American electorate.

Both judges relied on Armando Gutierrez, a political consultant. Gutierrez, who was hired to run Judge King's campaign, became notorious as the pro bono spokesman for the Miami family of Elian Gonzales. (As a result, King's father -- federal judge James L. King -- recused himself from hearing the Elian Gonzales case.)

Gore campaign officials claim Penelas had promised, in a telephone call, to issue a statement calling for the recount to resume. Instead Mr. Penelas' statement said only that he could not affect the board's decisions.

Key Democrats now suggest the mayor double-crossed them. In the wake of rumors and accusations about the recount decision, the mayor released his phone records to show that he has recently made frequent calls to both key Democrats and key Republicans in Washington.

Before the Elian fiasco, Penelas had been proposed as a leading Democratic challenger for Florida governor, even as a possible running mate for Gore. Now one of the mayor's associates has said that Penelas is thinking seriously of running for Congress as a Republican.

Penelas has denied influencing the Canvassing Board as well as published reports that he is about to become a Republican. But his actions suggest he is unwilling to distance himself from militant Cuban organizers.

The crowds that menaced the Canvassing Board and roughed up a Democratic official had been summoned by Radio Mambi, one of Miami's most stridently anti-communist Cuban radio stations. Radio Mambi played a similar role mustering the crowds who attempted to prevent Elian Gonzales from being reunited with his father.

Two prominent figures in the tumultuous crowd calling for a stop to the counting were Republican members of Congress, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Both also supported last spring's boisterous protests over Elian.

Beyond the moves of individuals with respect to Elian and the recount is the culture of intrigue and violence that marks one segment of Miami's Cuban community. This can be traced back to the days when so many Cuban exile leaders in Florida (including Diaz-Balart's father) were involved in anti-Castro terrorist activities for the CIA.

Until his death in 1997, a main funder of such violence was CIA veteran Jorge Mas Canosa, founder and head of the politically influential Cuban American National Foundation, which runs Radio Mambi.

Before CANF, Mas Canosa had been involved in a terrorist plot to blow up a Cuban ship in the Mexican port of Veracruz. In 1985 Mas Canosa helped his ally in that plot, Luis Posada, escape from a Venezuelan prison, and relocate in El Salvador as part of a Contra supply operation directed by Oliver North and then Vice-President George Bush. (Seven years later, at a $1,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner, President Bush said, "I salute Jorge Mas.")

Since then Posada has been indicted or detained a number of times for a series of bombings and attacks on Castro's life, which he once said were financed by CANF officials. He was detained again on November 19 of this year in Panama, allegedly for plotting to kill Castro during a visit there.

When Elian Gonzales was returned to Cuba, The Los Angeles Times wrote that those who fought "the crusade to keep Elian in Miami have lost big, both politically and financially. Now, the road has been swept clear for other, more moderate groups to speak for Cuban exiles."

Others predicted, however, that the real loser would be Al Gore. They thought Gore's break with the Administration on the issue would not influence Republican Cuban voters, but could well diminish his popularity with the mainstream.

Which of these schools of thought will be proven more correct depends, in part, on the outcome of the fight for the White House. But Miami's Cuban American exiles are far from a spent force.

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