Could 2008 Election Be Stolen?

Now that Barack Obama is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, progressives seem to have reason to be optimistic about the 2008 presidential election.

But Elliot D. Cohen, writing at BUZZFLASH, says any optimism definitely should be guarded. Why? Because there is strong reason to believe the 2008 presidential election could be stolen--just as evidence strongly suggests the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen.

Cohen is a media critic and ethicist and the author of The Last Days of Democracy: How Big Media and Power-Hungry Government are Turning America into a Dictatorship.

As an Alabama citizen who has become the target of retaliation because of my efforts to write the truth about the Bush Justice Department and Alabama's corrupt state courts, I take Cohen's warnings seriously.

In fact, my wife and I several times in recent days, having noticed no let-up in the brazenness with which "loyal Bushies" operate in our state, have asked this question: "Are these people so brazen and arrogant because they know the 2008 presidential election is going to be stolen? Do they continue to act corruptly because they know the Justice Department will remain in Republican hands for the next four years?"

Cohen, in a sobering piece, notes that Republicans can use some of the standard electoral tricks--disenfranchising black voters and others likely to support Obama, hacking into electronic voting machines.

But he notes some other possible tricks that probably are new to the general public:

* Because of its warrantless surveillance program, the Bush administration has installed computer technology at major telecommunications hubs (such as AT&T) that can intercept and read messages before they reach their final destination. This could be used to reconfigure balloting data.

* Similar technology can be used to intercept phone calls and e-mails from all kinds of folks, including presidential candidates and their representatives. The McCain camp, with the help of the Bush administration, theoretically could find out about Obama's latest campaign strategy and take steps to thwart it.

The final word from Cohen?

For the Obama camp, trying to win a victory against McCain and his Bush Administration support system may be like trying to play cards against an opponent who is using a loaded deck.

But all American citizens on either side of the political divide should be concerned about the prospects of the 2008 presidential race becoming a power grab where the lives and liberties of all of us are used and abused to amass power and dominance, both here and abroad. Those who support Obama need to beware. But those who support McCain need equally to beware, for winning a contest that is fixed is not really winning; and when the contest in question involves the defiling of the U.S. Constitution and the destruction of democracy, there are values at stake that far transcend one's party affiliation.