Democrats Name Chief Excuse-Maker in Florida

Washington - Poised once again to lose Florida, and this time by far more than 537 votes, Democrats have appointed former President Jimmy Carter as official "Democratic Excuse Maker" for the 2004 election.

To kick off his new duties, Carter wrote an opinion article in today's Washington Post in which he declared "conditions for a fair election in that state still don't exist."

Carter, citing the experience of his Carter Center in monitoring international elections, said "some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida."

Most significant, he said, were requirements that a nonpartisan electoral commission or official organize and conduct the electoral process and that voting procedures be uniform for all citizens.

He said Florida's top election official in 2000, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was "highly partisan" and that Harris' successor, Glenda Hood, has shown "the same strong bias."

He said Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, had done little to "correct these departures from principles of fair and equal treatment."

"With reforms unlikely at this late stage of the election, perhaps the only recourse will be to focus maximum public scrutiny on the suspicious process in Florida," Carter said.

John F'n Kerry, the liberal Massachusettes Senator who pretends to run for president, said in an interview today that he actually voted for election reform in Florida before he voted against it, and as president would send thousands of French troops in to monitor the election in what he called the "right war at the right time."