There really is a lot of repugnant material in this speech Governor Schweitzer game to his Trial Lawyer buddies (and one enemy with a tape recorder). The Gazette breaks down some of the more vile examples.
1) He advocated the intimidation of Republican Poll watchers by threatening them with jail on trumped up charges. His excuse: “It was just a colorful way of saying you can’t have anyone intimidated.” What in the bloody hell does he think threatening someone with jail on trumped up charges constitutes?
2) He claimed to influence the vote-counting procedures in Butte. Of course, no one was there to tape-record any conversation that may or may not have taken place so this is an easy one to lie away - especially since both Schweitzer and Mary McMahon have a pretty hefty incentive to lie. But considering his excuse for this entire speech is just that he was lying to fire up a crowd, does anyone think he’d have any problem at all lying to save his own ass? I’m calling bull; I want an explanation for why Butte/Silverbow turned in their results so late. I want to know why Mary McMahon would turn down a call from the freaking governor on election night. It doesn’t add up.
3) He bragged about trying to force the AP to call the race before the numbers were in. Interestingly enough, this is the only part of the three stories that doesn’t involve multiple parties with strong incentives to lie. And for this one, we learn that it actually happened: Clarke said: “Yes, Gov. Schweitzer did call me on the morning after the election, and he did tell me he was going to declare Tester the victor. I told him we would call the race when we were satisfied the vote count was accurate.”
So here’s what we’ve got. A politician who said he did some things that he absolutely should not have done. When someone asks him about it, his defense is that he was just lying joking, and that the truth was he is a freaking boy scout.
But if the snake-oil he’s selling is that he’s a liar (that’s his spin, mind you), then how in the name of Obama can anyone trust that he’s not lying about lying
Governor you abused your power. It’s time for you to resign.
Posted in Brian Schweitzer | | Write a Letter to the Editor
It seems the AP should have reported the call from Schweitzer that was made to them early in the morning after election day. It also seems the elections official in Butte (Mary McMahon) should have reported the tampering or bullying by Schweitzer.
The AP guy said “I told him we would call the race when we were satisfied the vote count was accurate.” It does not appear the election results were too accurate.
I imagine there’s a lot more to this story. Are the Native Americans ticked off enough at the Governor’s actions in poking fun at them and using them to go on the record about the calls he made to them?
So many questions. “Sorry” won’t get Schweitzer out of it.
It appears that Gov. B.S. is an individual that obviously likes to boast himself in front of lots of people. Kudos for both the election official in Butte (Mary McMahon) for not taking his call when he did call and to the AP representive (Clark) for saying that they will call it when they are ready to call it. As for his comments about the Native Americans and the pregnant nun comment, I hope that all the Native Americans and the women of Montana remember it in November. The Gov. should find out the election results, just like the rest of the folks, after the election officials have released them.
Here’s the scenario: a group of well meaning white folks travel to an impoverished, traditionally disenfranchised hamlet to make it known they care about civil liberties enough to monitor and participate in the electoral process. Upon arrival they’re met by local law enforcement and threatened with arrest unless they leave immediately. Isn’t this exactly the type of actions that resulted in the Voting Rights Act? Oops, I guess that only applies to one side of the electorate.
Nasal radiator would find himself needing some nasal reconstruction in a lot of venues for trying to compare vote caging assholes to civil rights activists.
Gov. Schweitzer was making a joke folks, get over it. There’s a whole section on them at Wikipedia if ya’ll need to look it up. Gov. Schweitzer’s a great orator, and in this case, he just mixed in a little too much wit, irony and rhetoric in the same speech.
And please don’t try to imply that if your alleged abuses had actually happened, we wouldn’t have already heard about it. That’s almost a funny anti-joke.
You are a joke, even though there is nothing really funny about low intelligence compounded with deceit.
