During the absolute sham that happened on the floor of the United States House of Representatives on Thursday afternoon, Rep. Maxine Waters of California finally admitted for the official record what many of us have known for a long time — Michael Moore runs the Democratic Party.

Waters took to the well of the House near the end of what can very loosely be called a debate on the question of objecting to the certification of the Ohio electoral votes of the 2004 presidential election. In a quivering voice that betrayed either an oncoming eruption of tears or outright fury, Waters "dedicated" her remarks and the overall objection effort to Michael Moore. Moore, it was earlier noted by a Republican member, was upset in 2000 that no Democrat in Congress raised an objection to the certification of the Florida votes, and hoped that this would not be the case in 2004. Let it not be said that Democrats do not follow the orders of their leader.

Even more astonishing — though not entirely surprising — was the appearance of an utter lack of understanding of the concept of federalism among many of the Democratic representatives who rose to object to the Ohio vote. This is also a reflection of their leader's ignorance. Just as the Democratic answer to most everything is to legislate more and more on the federal level, many Democratic members think the answer to the "problems" in counting votes in the states is to make voting a federal activity, regulated by the Congress.

Pointing out that each individual state is responsible for their own elections, and that this system has served us well for over two centuries falls on deaf ears. Despite thinking somehow that they are above the riff—raff they represent, Members of Congress are indeed citizens of individual states. If they have a problem with how their state runs their election, they should take it up with their state representative or state senator.

Curiously, no Democrat stood up to object to the tires of vans that were to shuttle Republican voters to the polls being slashed and rendered useless. That happened in Wisconsin, which went for Kerry. Many Democrats alluded to the Florida race in 2000, yet none of them pointed out the closeness of the vote in states such as New Mexico that went for Al Gore by the thinnest of margins, despite evidence of outright Democratic fraud.

Since John Kerry conceded the election, the Democratic Party has had every opportunity to practice what they constantly preach about healing, coming together, and uniting. Yet at every turn they have embraced every conceivable conspiracy theory regarding election fraud, have rained bitter invective at the President and his administration for somehow manipulating the entire voting process, and looked to the lunatic fringe of the lunatic left for leadership and guidance. Kudos to Maxine Waters, though, for finally saying it out loud.

Matt May   1 07 05