Bush and his administration have no right to lecture Ukraine about rigged electioins. Look at what Bush and company pulled off in election of 2000. And there are lots of questions of voter irregularity this time. Ohio had massive voter irregularities and that was the state which saw Bush reelected. I am just happy that there has not been extensive violence connected with the happenings in Ukraine. Ukraine and Belarus have dictators.


[Thread title modified for typo. - Outsports moderator]

[ December 09, 2004, 08:58 AM: Message edited by: m1 ]

Even assuming that President Bush was elected less than honorably waaaaaaaaaaay (that's waaa, as in "Waaa, waaa, I didn't get my way and am not going to stop whining about it!") back in Y2K, that hardly prevents him or anyone else from decrying election fraud wherever, if not whenever, found. Any other approach would only propagate this problem - as does crying wolf when there are no legitimate, fact-based reasons to do so.

On a purely hypothetical level (because whatever level of fraud or irregularity there was in 2000 or 2004, it in no way approaches the current Ukrainian situation), if a world leader were elecected in a rigged election, it would be the height of hypocrisy to comment on the relative merits of another country's elections. While hypocrisy does have its place in international diplomacy, the real question is does the lack of moral authority dilute the message?

Frankly, in reality, any question of the legitimacy of American intervention in this situation because of perceived voting irregularities is far overshadowed by the gross corruption and powermongering of the Putin government. Regardless of our internal problems, we come off as the white knight in this conflict because our image is up against that of a very authoritarian Russian regime.

And to answer the original question "Who are Bush and Powell...?" They're the only ones that can. Russia is overtly corrupt. Europe is too fractured to have a coherent foreign message. And everywhere else doesn't really care or does't have the international cache to make a difference. I suppose Australia could get involved, but why would they?

Oh, the hypocrisy.

That has been trademarked. You owe me $2.00. I'd take it out in trade, but I heard you aren't that hot.

You could at LEAST get its punctuation correct. wink

Exactly! Besides, the Ukrainians seem to be resolving the situation relatively peacefully so far. :cool:

As usual, your sources are dead wrong.