The Strange Death of American Democracy

Assoc Prof Michael Keefer, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada

So who ever thought the 2004 US presidential election had the remotest chance of being honest and democratic?

Probably not Osama bin Laden, who made his much-anticipated Jack-in-the-Box video appearance three days before polling day: wearing a gold-lame hospital gown in front of a blank shower curtain, and with a nose that looked to have been quite recently punched flat, he landed some anti-Bush shots that Rush Limbaugh and the other ring-tailed roarers of the American right were happy to interpret as a last-minute endorsement of John Kerry.

And certainly not Republican Congressional Representative Peter King, who made an equally notable video statement on the afternoon of November 2nd, long before the polls closed, in the course of a White House function that seemed to have put him into a celebratory mood. 'It's already over,' he told the interviewer. 'The election's over. We won.' Asked how he knew at that early hour, King replied: 'It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting.'.....