Let's encourage the Chicago Tribune to run Bob Koehler's columns [View All]

[Fly by night]

I just sent an email to four of the high muckedy-mucks at the Chicago Tribune, encouraging them to run Bob Koehler's two excellent pieces based on the "Nash-ional" election reform conference. I'd like to encourage other DUers to do likewise. The four people I wrote were:

Ann Marie Lipinski, Editor [e-mail]
R. Bruce Dold, Editorial Page Editor [e-mail]
N. Don Wycliff, Public Editor [e-mail]
James O'Shea, Managing Editor jo'[e-mail]

I would encourage you folks to send them similar letters, as well as communicating with other Tribune Company newspapers. These papers include the Los Angeles Times, New York Newsday, Stamford, CT Advocate, Baltimore Sun, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Orlando Sentinel, Hartford, CT Courant, Allentown, PA Morning Call, Hampton Roads, VA Daily Press, and the Hoy and El Sentinel Spanish language newspapers.

Let's ask all these Tribune Company outlets to run Bob's columns. Jeez, just imagine how many more people would be talking election theft if we could get his columns in these papers. Now here's my letter to the Chicago Tribune:

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Please publish the two recent columns of Robert Koehler regarding the National Election Reform Conference in Nashville, TN
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 14:36:10 -0500


To the four of you, as the keepers of the Chicago Tribune's editorial page flame:

I remain very surprised and a bit chagrined that the flagship of the Tribune Media Services syndicate -- the Chicago Tribune -- has not chosen to run either one of Robert Koehler's two recent columns based on his experiences at the National Election Reform Conference in Nashville, TN (April 8-10, 2005), and the evidence for election fraud/theft that was presented there. Here are my links to Mr. Koehler's columns for your quick reference.

http://www.commonwonders.com/archives/col290.htm
http://www.commonwonders.com/archives/col291.htm

Mr. Koehler's two recent columns are among the most critically important commentary that any American newspaper could choose to make available to the American people at this time. The evidence for a 2004 election that was massively tampered-with continues to accumulate and the rising sense of unease and mistrust that our citizens (including former Democratic Presidents like Jimmy Carter and former Republican leaders like James Baker) feel regarding the voting process is palpable and is being widely discussed. Why not publish the truly informed and reality-based commentary of Bob Koehler, who listened for three days to experts from across the country who have documented this theft and who then wrote two clarion calls for the American people to sit up, stand up and speak out in defense of this democracy. No small story, this one. And no better commentary on where we are now with regard to saving the franchise than the two columns Bob Koehler produced with your assistance.

Here in Nashville, we are proud that Bob's first column has run and we remain hopeful that the Nashville Tennessean will choose to run the second column. We are also pleased to hear that Bob's first column has run in New York, Idaho and Louisiana, among other places (as well as getting tens of thousands of on-line web-hits). We are also thankful that the Philadelphia Inquirer chose to run a similar long op-ed piece today by Dr. Josh Mitteldorf on his experiences and what he learned at the same Nashville conference. It very much confirms what Bob has written. I am enclosing the Josh Mitteldorf link so that you can read an independent observer's view of the same conference, and his equally
persuasive sense of urgency with which the evidence must now be enjoined.

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/opinion/11489971.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

What we tried to accomplish in Nashville, and what Bob Koehler is accomplishing with his columns, is to call attention to the serious evidence for a failed and flawed election process. If -- in our country -- we cannot be led through the consent of the governed, then why are we presuming to lead the world? If we cannot be assured that our own leaders govern with the true assent of the governed and the accompanying power that this assent imparts, then what might we have already become?

Can you find a story line -- a thimbleful of doubt, a thread of relevance -- in anything that I have said or in the plethora of election fraud stories that continue to peculate within our media, even now, even eight months since (what)? If so, then it is your solemn duty to encourage greater public awareness, and facilitate immediate remedial dialogue and action, to help right the American ship of state. Publishing Bob Koehler's columns would be an excellent place to start supporting a return to a government of the people, by the people, for the people and at the behest of the people in this birthplace of democracy.

As for me, Bob Koehler's columns are among the most important pieces of American commentary widely circling the globe through the internet at this moment. It might be nice for the Chicago Tribune to give Bob "a room at the (hometown) inn" by publishing his columns soon. As an organization, you are already receiving credit for being Bob's employer. You should take full credit for his recent work and showcase it, as the quality and clarity of Bob's work and the position of the Chicago Tribune within the Fourth Estate commands. I would also hope that all other Tribune Company newspapers follow your lead in publishing Bob's work soon. Thank you for your consideration.

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OK folks, drop the Chicago Tribune and affiliated papers a line, encourage them to run Bob's columns and keep this kicked a while. I will post the relevant email addresses for all the Tribune Company papers when I get them. We need every American to read these columns -- they don't mince words.