American public is persuaded to believe this pleasant myth of the “free and open election process,” ...

The Great American Election Charade | by Ernest Partridge | January 16, 2008
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The more the American public is persuaded to believe this pleasant myth of the “free and open election process,” the longer that public will believe that each new Chief Executive is the legitimate "people's choice." And that persisting public belief suits the powers that be in the military-industrial-corporate-media complex (MICMC) just fine.
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(As numerous polls have disclosed, John Edwards is potentially the strongest Democratic candidate against the Republicans, and Hillary Clinton is the weakest. Yet Edwards, who finished second in the Iowa caucuses, has vanished from the pages of the mainstream media, from the columns of the punditocracy, and even from the press conferences of The Democratic Leadership Council – the Republican wing of the Democratic party).
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At long last, more and more ordinary Americans are getting the message that they have been lied to, that they can no longer trust the mainstream media, that their public treasury has been looted, that their children’s and grandchildren’s future has been mortgaged, and that they are living under the darkening shadow of despotism.

Still the establishment MICMC rolls on in its arguably pre-determined course, “populism” and the public be damned. Matt Taibbi on Bill Maher’s “Real Time” last Friday summed it up perfectly:

The [campaign] theme for awhile was that the voters were sick and tired of being told by the media who was going to be their nominee. But it seems to have come full circle now, and it looks like we may end up getting the same people we were going to get in the first place: [McCain and Clinton]....

Seventy percent of the country wants to withdraw from Iraq, and we get two pro-war candidates. If that doesn’t tell you how f****d-up the system is, I don’t know what does. ...