November Surprise? (GOP election trickery rears its head again)

[CaroleG]

The US-backed special tribunal in Baghdad signalled Monday that it will likely delay a verdict in the first trial of Saddam Hussein to November 5. Why hasn't the mainstream media connected the dots between the Saddam's judgment day and the midterm elections?

A possible death-sentence for Saddam and his top lieutenants on November 5? Now, shouldn't that raise a few eyebrows somewhere? If you happen to have a calendar close at hand, pull it over and take a quick look. That verdict would then come, curiously enough, just two days before the midterm elections. It's the sort of thing that--you would think--that any reporter with knowledge of the US election cycle (no less of how Karl Rove has worked these last years) would at least note in an article. But no, you can search high and low without finding a reference to this in the mainstream media.

I must admit I hadn't thought about this myself until a friend forwarded me "No Comment," the e-mail newsletter that Scott Horton sends out from time to time. ("It's intended as ironic. All I do is comment.") Horton, who likes to identify himself in his newsletter as an "obscure New York lawyer," is actually an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Law School, as well as chairman of the International Law Committee at the New York City Bar Association. He makes frequent trips to Iraq, working as an attorney "representing arrested local-hire reporters of US media."

Once he had pointed out the timing in his newsletter, I couldn't get it out of my head and, since a Google search and a spin through various mainstream articles on the changed verdict date, brought up only a couple of passing mentions online of its relationship to the US elections, I called Horton directly. Here's what he had to say when I asked whether he thought Karl Rove might have anything to do with this:

"For sure. That November 5 date is designed to show some progress in Iraq. This is the last full news-cycle day in the US before the elections. It'll be Monday. And the American public will see Saddam condemned to death and see it as a positive thing.



http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=130487

[knowbody0]

1. meh

just clearing the courts for george's trial.

[tom_paine]

2. If that's their October (November) Surprise, it's pretty weak.

Maybe it's just there for the backstory. You know, stunning Bushevik "upset" victory. Surprise last minute surge to the polls saves GOP...and so forth.

I've seen this TV show before. It's predictable, boring, and I know how it ends.

If the votes were actually properly counted in this Third-World Country, this October Surprise (if thats what it will be), would have little effect on the outcome.

[PSPS]

8. I think you're on to something

With their vote suppression and hacking the machines to "flip" to the GOP, they will need "plausible deniability" that the press can use to prop up the fraud.

It will go something like this:

"The GOP was headed for disaster but, apparently, the Saddam verdict must have caused 'values voters' and the GOP base to decide at the last minute to switch their votes to the GOP. Oh, and exit polls aren't reliable."

[Brundle_Fly]

12. Saddam who?

Dancing with the stars is on.

[teenagebambam]

3. It was theorized on another thread...

...that this will be a bad move on Rove's part. Iraq will EXPLODE with violence when a guilty verdict is announced.

[annabanana]

6. a violence "explosion" will not get coverage

until after the election. (And it won't be front page, either)

[annabanana]

4. I can see the RW media echo chamber getting plenty

of "run" out of this.

It will give time for the spokesdemons to get out in full throated glory of B*sh's great progress and it will dominate the two days immediately prior to the election.

I do believe you have spotted something here...

[peacebird]

5. will Saddams sentencing overrule the climbing death toll? For both US and

Iraqis?

[bigdarryl]

7. A death sentence might spark more wide attacks on US soldiers...

so I don't think this helps the republicans at all in fact it might have the reverse effect.

[ngant17]

9. I wouldn't think Iraq will become very peaceful

if the US-controlled courts in Iraq give the green light to kill Pres. Sadaam.

It would in effect represent a coup d'etat like in Chile in 1972, when a US-supported and -financed coup killed the legitimate leader Allende and set up their own dictatorship. Sadaam will be transformed into a mythical figure and an inspiration to the resistance in ways that he could never do for himself while alive.

In Chile, they were able to control the resistant population by death squads and military powers. This scenario won't work in Iraq, because the Iraqi resistance comprises a large and diverse group of combatants, and there is no shortage of arms and ammunition for them to continue fighting, unlike in Chile where there was not enough people and arms to wage a protracted war and counter-attack against the coup.

[Imagevision]

10. Fu*king Great! - how many US. troops have to die because of Rove move

[snowbear]

11. I mentioned that yesterday, and got slammed by one poster here.

-----------------------------------------------------
"Taoschick (250 posts) Tue Oct-17-06 12:45 PM
Response to Reply #2

5. So, you're assuming
This is just some trumped up trial of an innocent man admired by all? We Can't you give the Iraqis any credit for perhaps trying to handle their own problem? Are they all mindless puppets controlled by the USA?

The only people who are going to give a shit about this are those who supported the invasion of Iraq. That, by the way, doesn't include the vast majority of the voting public so I can't see this having any impact whatever on the elections."
-----------------------------------------------------

Seems that they believe that the date was not somehow coordinated to occur right before a crucial election in the U.S.

Oy..