Stand Up, Senator
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report
Wednesday 05 January 2004
"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out."
- Vaclav Havel
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Four years ago, standing up was politically dangerous. The country had just endured a month of mayhem and charges and countercharges and overheated rhetoric. The Supreme Court had ruled, a judicial version of the loud voice from Mount Ararat that cannot be contravened. The tablets had been handed down.
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This time, despite the earnest desires of millions of people, such an option is not on the table. The process itself, barring another edict from Ararat, precludes the notion that someone besides Bush will take the oath on January 20th. If Conyers and company stand and object with the support of a Senator, the Electoral College hearing will adjourn, and both the House and Senate will hear two hours of testimony on the reasons behind the objection. After the testimony, the House and Senate will have a straight up-or-down vote on whether to entertain the objection. Given the GOP dominance in both chambers, the outcome of such a vote is preordained.
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The difference this time politically for any Senator who stands up is that this fight is not about and must not be about replacing Bush with Kerry. This is about making sure that the greatest democracy in the history of the world lives up to that title.
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A Senator must stand up with Conyers and open the door to testimony on this election in both chambers of Congress. A Senator must stand up so a national dialogue on how we run elections is created and carried forward.
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