AUSTIN, Texas -- A substantial nit to pick with President Bush's second Inaugural Address and some questions about his theme.

"From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave."

Oh dear. It took us almost 100 years to get rid of slavery right here in the Land of the Free, it took us another 100 years to get rid of legal discrimination based on race and gender, and how long it will take us to achieve equal opportunity for all in this country no one can say. At least we're working at it. Or we were.

The Bush theme of what someone else christened "evangelical democracy" is rather like the "From the day of our founding ..." passage -- actually, it's more complicated than that. I, too, am happy to proselytize for freedom and democracy, but I don't think we can export it by force and I don't think we can expect the world to accept our noble intentions.

Ohio's Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has publicly labeled as "a complete idiot" an Election Protection attorney he is attempting to have sanctioned. Blackwell made the derogatory personal attack outside a banquet-laden conference in Columbus being sponsored by Diebold, ES&S, Triad and other voting machine vendors.

Blackwell told the 56th annual winter conference of the Ohio Association of Election Officials that the 2004 vote in Ohio was the "gold standard" for national balloting. "We were shocked when people flew in and said the election could be stolen," he told an audience of several hundred election officials from around the state. "The election was not perfect, but it was perfectly inspiring."

The four-day conference held January 25-8 a Columbus's Hyatt Regency Hotel features banquets, luncheons and parties (including one entitled "A Night in the Caribbean") sponsored by the nation's leading voting machine manufacturers, including ES&S, Diebold, Triad, Hart InterCivic and other names now widely associated with questions about the accuracy of the vote counts in the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections.

AUSTIN, Texas -- I wouldn't say it's the most earth-shaking issue around, but I'm fascinated by this fight the administration is picking with the media over "private accounts" versus "personal accounts."

Here's the state of play: Everybody went along in cheerful harmony describing the president's Social Security plan as "partial privatization," since it would allow younger workers to put a third or more of their payroll taxes into private accounts. President Bush called them "private accounts," everyone in the administration called them "private accounts," and Republicans, Democrats and the media all called them "private accounts."

Then, one day, some focus group showed that people, particularly older people, react negatively to any connection between Social Security and the word private. For some reason, people like the sound of "personal accounts" better than they do "private accounts."

When the Multinational Monitor judges gather to pick the 10 worst corporations of the year, one of their instructions is: name no companies that appeared on the previous year's list (barring extraordinary circumstances).

For the 2004 list, that means no Bayer (even though in 2004 the company pushed for import of genetically modified rice into the European Union, polluted water in a South African town with the carcinogen hexavalent chromium, and was hit with evidence that its pain medication Aleve (naproxen) increases the risk of heart attack, among other egregious acts), no Boeing (despite new evidence that the tanker plane scandal costing U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of dollars is! even worse than it appeared), no Clear Channel (even though the radio behemoth in 2004 stooped to new lows with a "Breast Christmas Ever" contest that promised to pay for breast implants for a dozen contest "winners"),  and no  Halliburton (embroiled in a whole new set of contracting fraud and bribery charges in 2004).  But at least the no-repeat rule helps limit the field a bit.

And there remained plenty of worthy candidates.

Friends,

Two issues cry out to me for emphasis in the court of public opinion.

First, the "bipartisan" nature of the Boards of Election (BOEs) is nominal at best. The SoS has the power to issue directives and votes the tie-breaker at the county level. It was Blackwell's directive that required voters must be in the right precinct for example. In any case where a BOE vote is split evenly on party lines Blackwell's vote breaks the tie. Finally all BOE members serve at the pleasure of the SoS. The sham of bipartisanship needs to be continually exposed.

Second, whether there were (let's call them) over-zealous actions by the contest attorneys that stretched the rules of civil procedure, the total absence of care for democratic processes is evident in the the Secretary's motion itself which acknowledges "long lines, shortages of machines, failing to receive notice of the proper voting precinct, or casting or provisional ballots" (pp. 6-7). The team of Blackwell, Petro and Moyers apparently care little for the protection of voters' rights.

--John