corrente

I nominate this as a serious candidate for the real October Surprise. Whether it would be, after calm bipartisan debate and thorough technical analysis, a good thing or not I have no idea. I think it safe to say though, that thrown into the current environment, thirteen days before the election in question, it stinks to high heaven:

(via NYT)

Bowing to pressure from both the Republican and Democratic Parties, the Pentagon has decided to post a federal write-in ballot on its Web site for civilian and military voters to use overseas if their regular ballots fail to arrive in time.

Political wrangling and late primaries caused local election offices in at least eight swing states to miss the deadline of Sept. 19 for sending out ballots to ensure their timely return from far-flung locales where mail service is slow.
[snip]

Pentagon officials said that this retrieval system - available through the Web site, myballot.mil - could include only the military because they were using a Pentagon database to verify voter identities. But Mr. Richard, the Pentagon spokesman, acknowledged recently that some civilians working for military contractors could use the system because they are included in the verification database.

Ten states have agreed to make their ballots accessible through myballot.mil, while 23 have declined to participate citing security and other concerns.

No shit, Sherlock. I don't care if these "contractors" have been vouched for by St. Peter before the throne of God, they shouldn't be using a .mil system. And with some states accepting these "votes" and others refusing, they couldn't have set it up better for interminable legal challenges if they'd tried.

"Snafu" entered the language as a regular word so long ago that most have forgotten its origin as a military acronym: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. FUBAR is one step past that: Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. We may need new terms for a new centuries' wars. I suggest FUGBUS: Fucked Up in George Bush Usual Style