Recount updates -- the Green Party joins the fray

Keith Olbermann is on fire, baby: fire.

He's reporting that David Cobb -- he was the Green Party Presidential Candidate, FYI, and at one point during the election returns, he was marked as having gotten some ungodly number of votes in Ohio... it was then corrected -- told a California radio station late yesterday afternoon that he is "quite likely" to be joining the demand for an Ohio recount.

Meanwhile, Keith updates us on Nader and New Hampshire: "The New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General, meanwhile, told us at Countdown that negotiations are ongoing with Ralph Nader, who at a news conference yesterday not only demanded a recount in a minimum of four districts, but also added another bizarre touch to the proceedings by launching into a brief but surprisingly high-quality Richard Nixon impression."

Apparently, according to NH Assistant Attorney General Bud Fitch. those reports that Nader didn't get a filing fee into the recount authorities in New Hampshire in time were erroneous. (I thought they were pretty funny, the stories about the three Nader staffers trying to get a check in a fax machine.) But, Fitch and Co. are making Nader provide a written guarantee that Nader would cover all costs relating to a recount. That's okay, Ralph can just fire a few Public Citizen employees and replace them with volunteer "interns." Oh, I'm just kidding, far lefty readers, don't get your undies in a bundle.

So for both Cobb and Nader: Recounts. They're available, if you can afford 'em. (Fitch estimated a recount in NH would cost as much as $80,000. So much for "live free or die.") C'mon, Susan Sarandon! That's probably one twentieth of your take-home from Shall We Dance or Alfie!

Keith also mentions this new article by the Cincinatti Enquirer, which continues to cover the Warren County lockdown scandal. Remember the details: Warren County officials locked down the vote-counting going on in this heavily Republican district, keeping the media out, as the county was one of the last to report its returns in the late hours on November 2. Their rationale, they claim, is that they did it out of terrorist concerns -- that FBI and Homeland Security types were telling them that there was a high terror alert in Southwestern Ohio (those terrorists have a real eye out for Waffle House and Cracker Barrel, apparently) -- but as it turns out, "The rationale for the bizarre “lockdown” of the vote-counting venue in Warren County on election night suddenly broke down when it was contradicted by spokespersons from the FBI and Ohio’s primary homeland security official."

So it's he said, she said, like a screwball romantic comedy or many a Special Victims Unit case. County Commissioners President Pat South claims that they had received memos, and their director fo Emergency Services had a face to face meeting with the FBI, where the County higher-ups were informed that "on a scale from 1 to 10, the tri-state area of Southwest Ohio was ranked at a high 8 to law 9 in terms of security risk. Warren County in particular, was rated at 10." (What's this numbers crap? What is this, a movie review? Warren County was rated even better than Sideways and Motorcycle Diaries by reviewers nationwide? I so prefer the color spectrum the feds had given us! Was Warren yellow? Orange? A light taupe?)

But the FBI says, uh uh, no you di'n't! "The FBI did not notify anyone in Warren County of any specific terrorist threat to Warren County before Election Day,” FBI spokesman Michael Brooks told Enquirer reporters Erica Solvig and Dan Horn.

My God -- whose story do we trust? Republican officials or the Feds? This is like the "is the enemy of my enemy my friend" conundrum for every one who ever gave money to Pacifica Radio or gave a girlfriend a gift subscription to the Utne Reader!

Keith also gets some good fellow Cornell alumni swipes at everyone's favorite anorexic with bad fashion sense and worse logic, Ann Coulter. But it's kinda irrelevant to our purposes here. But read it anyway.

Anyway, glad to see that Keith is keeping on topic. Let's get recounts Ohio and New Hampshire, where we have paper trails, and see if everything jibes. Get the GAO on board. Settle any suspicions or concerns, because George W. Bush deserves to have no Roger Maris asterisks placed next to his name this time, unlike last time when they really won it crooked. Let's clear everything up. Aside from the Opti-Scan Bush surges in Dixiecrat Counties, none of the strange phenomena has yet to be explained to me. It needs to be explained. Stay on target. Stay on target.