It was Quite the Coup

As Edward Luttwak remarks in Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook: A coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder. In this sense, the use of either military or another organized force is not the defining feature of a coup d’état. [wikipedia]

In the end result, there is little difference between Bush’s hi-jacking of the 2000 election and the DNC fixing of the 2008 Democratic primary to install a nominee that was preselected by party leadership. It is only a matter of at which stage the election process was compromised. Just because political power will be assumed in January; it cannot be assumed that this power has been legitimized democratically. In the eyes of those who witnessed the horrors of the Democratic primary with eyes wide open, the legitimacy of an Obama presidency may be impossible to reconcile, and he will therefore always be PINO (president in name only) to them.

Even if the general election was decided fairly, many of the circumstances which led to Obama’s Denver Coronation were highly suspect. There is ample evidence that Camp Obama used a variety of “organizational” tactics to disrupt caucuses, and also engaged in outright voter fraud. The DNC helped guarantee his nomination by ignoring their own rules of fair reflection at the Denver RBC meeting, and later at the convention roll-call vote. Because the pledged delegate count was always too close to decide the outcome, the manipulation of Super Delegates, and even “pledged” delegates, was a deciding factor right up to the scripted roll call at the Denver convention; a vote which – even though Party Unity was being broadcast publicly – could have gone either way if strong-arm tactics and intimidation had not been imposed to insure conformity.

Through the “infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the [party] apparatus” (in this case the privately run DNC) Obama surrogates, pretending to be neutral, betrayed their party’s trust by tailoring the process each step of the way to benefit their own candidate and eliminate Clinton. The coup-like quality of Obama’s ascendancy has not escaped the notice of some, even as the general consensus chooses to be distracted by shiny, Unifying objects, and the mythology created by a fawning corporate media. McCain and the Bush administration surely were aware of improprieties, but never said a word because it was not their fight and did not serve there purposes.

Many Democrats chose to be blissfully unaware of such things as caucus fraud and the disenfranchisement of just two of the several states that broke “the rules” by moving their their primary forward. DNC machinations, such as the definitional evolution of the duties of Super Delegates, went unnoticed, and charges of media bias were smugly dismissed whenever the current narrative worked to the advantage of a voter’s preferred candidate.

Because the DNC is considered a private entity, their caucuses do not come under the same laws as the general election, and the responsibility of “policing” voter fraud is solely in the hands of the party leadership. But, since the party leadership saw no advantage in pursuing the countless complaints of violations and voter intimidation by the Obama campaign during the chaos of the Texas caucuses (and a pattern of caucus hijinx going back to Iowa) they looked the other way, and the media was more than happy to join them.

Just because we live in a Democracy, and Obama is now our president elect, this does not necessarily make Obama our democratically elected president. Just because no one has challenged the legality of the DNC breach of faith that enabled Obama’s nomination, doesn’t mean the Party’s stated charter was not violated and the process was not fatally flawed. Even though the DNC is for legal purposes a private organization, their nomination process was still, in effect, a sham and a fraud perpetrated on the American public and those states that threw away millions of dollars on primaries, not realizing the deck was stacked to favor one preordained candidate over another.

If the process was flawed, the ultimate result – for those who still value democratic principles – must also be flawed, and the nomination cannot be considered legitimate. Therefore, this DNC “coup once-removed” continues on its historic journey, and even if the general election is squeaky clean, we now have a leader who is, like Bush was in the eyes of many, PINO. And, if he is reelected in 4 years, he will be considered PINO still. Think about it. The United States has not had a legitimate president so far this century, and now we may not have another until the year 2016.