MB Civic

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102606M.shtml

More evidence that this thing we call America is badly broken…

Though last-minute campaign surprises are probably as old as democracy itself, the phrase in its modern usage dates back just over a quarter century to 1980 when President Jimmy Carter was seeking the freedom of 52 American hostages in Iran. Then-vice presidential candidate George H.W. Bush fretted publicly that a hostage release might be an “October Surprise” that would catapult Carter to reelection.

Ironically, however, the 1980 “October Surprise” controversy came to refer to an alleged dirty trick by Bush and other Republicans that thwarted Carter from gaining the hostages’ freedom. Carter’s failure propelled Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. to a landslide victory.

Arguably, the “October Surprise” of 1980 ushered in the modern era of GOP dominance, with the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations. Arguably, too, the Democrats’ failure in December 1992 to get the truth out about the Republican chicanery set the stage for the Right’s congressional resurgence in 1994 and for today’s George W. Bush Era.

…and that blow job in the oval office sure was a defining moment in our great “democracy”.
-MAB