by James Glaser
December 6, 2004

This last week the Ukraine election has been on the national news programs, the PBS News Hour, and in our news papers. Every hour there was an update about what was going on broadcast on National Public Radio. To be honest, I don't even know where exactly Ukraine is, nor do I really care. I do know one candidate is names Viktor Yannikovich and the other is Viktor Yushchenko. One wants closer ties to the USA and the other wants to hook up with Moscow. Don't ask me which one is which. I don't care.

We have a war going on in Iraq and it isn't going very well right now. Every day more Americans are getting killed or maimed or both. Iraq is in a state of chaos and it doesn't matter what Washington says, Iraqis are losing their lives by the scores every day. We have no idea of how many innocents have been killed over there, but for sure it is in the tens of thousands.

For some reason our media and Washington has decided that this story about the elections in the Ukraine is something important. We have our Secretary of State telling the world, and Moscow, we think they should keep their noses out of what is going on over there. I think the whole thing is a smoke screen to keep our eyes off of what is happening in Iraq and here at home.

There are some really big stories that effect us right here at home. If Ukraine goes East or West it really isn't going to change how many Americans get killed in Iraq next month and I don't think Ukrainians have much to do with the War on Terrorism. Most likely the terrorists who hate us don't know where the Ukraine is either.

There is a shake up going on in the Bush Administration. Most of his cabinet is bailing out so they can make some big money in the private sector and you know that book deals are being talked about.

Not that many people in this country would know about it, but there is a real stink being made about how our own American Election was handled in Ohio. Lets not look at that election when we can look at Ukraine's.

In Ohio, some precincts apparently recorded more votes than voters. Many voters report that when they attempted to record a vote for John Kerry their vote was displayed as being cast for George Bush. Some people had to wait in line for over 8 hours because traditionally Democratic precincts had a shortage of voting machines while Republican precincts had a surplus of voting machines and no lines.

Nobody wants to talk about Ohio, but the Ukraine election is all of a sudden real interesting.

George Bush is talking about changing 30 years of Environmental laws, the Social Security Program. Adding thousands of troops to Iraq and here we are worrying about how things are going in Ukraine.

Hey, it works. Get Americans thinking about how terrible things are going in a foreign country and they won't even think about our problems and Washington can slip in what ever they want. I don't know who picks what will be shown on the nightly news, but it sure is strange how every station picks the same thing to report on. Wag the Dog, 1997, Robert DeNiro and Dustin Hoffman. Watch it again.