A cleaner, brighter history

Rep. Corrine Brown of Florida and a bunch of other democrats have asked the UN to monitor the 2004 Presidential elections. As an idea, it has its merits. It also has as much of a chance of actually happening as say, Bush presiding over a gay wedding.

Though we aren't likely to see blue helmets at our polling stations in November, the lawmakers are dead serious about their central point. The 2000 Florida election process was deeply flawed. The US Commission on Civil Rights' report on Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election puts it this way:

The Commission’s findings make one thing clear: widespread voter disenfranchisement—not the dead-heat contest—was the extraordinary feature in the Florida election.

Unless attention is paid to maintaining data integrity, keeping the roads clear, leashing the Florida State Patrol and all the other dirty dealing designed to keep Blacks and Hispanics from casting their votes, it will happen again.

The GOP doesn't want to hear it. Today the House censured the remarks of Rep. Brown:

I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again," Brown said. "Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, 'Get over it.' No, we're not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world.

Naturally, the vote for censure fell along party lines.

I don't expect the GOP to fess up. But is their skin so thin they have to remove debate from the record? Me thinks they doth protest too much.