I fixed the election in Florida for George Bush

[aeon flux]

This is an apparent quote made by James Baker, according to Greg Palast. But what is the context? Is he saying that Baker admitted to rigging it? Or does he mean he fixed, as in repaired the 'election mess' in Florida?

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"I FIXED FLORIDA"

...Just last week Baker said, "I fixed the election in Florida for George Bush." That was the substance of his remarks last week to an audience of Russian big wigs as reported to me by my somewhat astonished colleagues at BBC television.

It was Baker, as consiglieri to the Bush family, who came up with the strategy of maneuvering the 2000 Florida vote count into a Supreme Court packed with politicos. Baker's claim to have fixed the election was not a confession; it was a boast. He meant to dazzle current and potential clients about his Big In with the Big Boy in the White House. Baker's firm is already a top player in the Great Game of seizing Caspian Sea oil. (An executive of Exxon-Mobil, one of Baker Botts's clients, has been charged with evading taxes on bribes paid in Kazakhstan.)

link

[WaterDog]

1. According to Palast's

sources, he's boasting. I don't find it very hard to believe.

[aeon flux]

2. I don't find it hard to believe either, if true

but I'd still like to see more info. The author makes only a passing remark about it, providing little detail, other than the quote itself and a bit of third hand information. "I fixed Florida" could mean anything. A Google search doesn't turn up anything more about the quote than the article mentioned. Oh well.

[Eric J in MN]

3. What is the time and place of that quote and who heard it first

What is the time and place of that quote and who heard it first-hand?

The article says his BBC collegues heard it last week.

Can one BBC person there come foward and say he heard it?

[ochazuke]

4. It doesn't look like a quote

Palast wrote that the *substance* of Baker's remarks was reported to him to be that he boasted of fixing the Florida election for Bush.

I'm beginning to wonder about this Palast fellow. If you take that one sentence out of context, or are so astounded by it that you fail to hear the next sentence, you'll think that Baker actually uttered the words "I fixed the election". It may seem trivial, but I think it is not a writing style that a good journalist should employ.

Another thing that makes me wonder about Palast is that some of the things he reports on -- so far as I know -- never turn up anywhere else. Like, that thing about the $9 billion dollar lawsuit in California that Shuwaa-chan fixed for the corporations (Enron, et al?) that screwed over CA in the electricity crisis a few years back. Why didn't Gray Davis or Bustamante whack Ahhnold over the head with that, if there was any substance to it?