Can't touch this

This morning on NPR, there was a discussion on the Diane Rehm show about the woeful Dems and the ragin' Republicans and their various prospects in Novemeber. Big discussions ensued about the races involving Leiberman and Lamont, DeWine and Brown; races where the incumbent is in serious jeopardy. One things always -- always -- missing in these election horse race discussions, of course, is any talk about the current raft of security issues with voting machines and the push by the establishment to install these easily hackable pieces of crap throughout the electoral system, despite their non-compliance with HAVA. It is a dark cloud that hangs over this country, but it must not ever be mentioned.

Danger of this happening lurks, though, when such talk shows are opened up to the public. I suspect that NPR's call screening process is little less rigourous than that employed by Limbaugh or O'Reilly and one distastefully informed listener managed an interlocution that was, to say least, unappreciated. This caller asked a several part question about some specific issues, one of which regarded Fienstien's war profiteering husband, Richard Blum, and his company's numerous government contracts in Iraq. There was another issue mentioned, but the final thing she mentioned was asking what the likely effect that Dieobld, ES&S, Sequoia and other voting machine vendors will have in "stealing the election, again." Whoa, nelly!

The response of the host, Susan Page, was a remarkably adept display of denial of service, as she immediately cut off the caller and said (in paraphrase), thank you and now let me address the first point raised, which, of course, had nothing to do with voting machine vendors or Fienstien's husband. The discussion seamlessly moved into a typical wonky discussion about campaigning, polls, blah, blah, blah. Of course, no discussion was forthcoming regarding Diebold or the distrustful electoral system, rife as it is with political operatives, made-guy election officials, voter denial services and voting machine vendors deterimined to bring electoral votes to, if not now George Bush, then the next designated go-to corporate-friendly pawn. It was as though the question had never been asked and to acknowledge it would have been impolitic.

"Public" radio, my ass.