The Bush administration spent more than $65 million in Ukraine trying to get opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko elected, even bringing Yushchenko to meet U.S. leaders and helping to underwrite exit polls indicating he won last month's disputed runoff election.
Administration officials deny Russian President Vladimir Putin's accusations that the U.S. interfered in Ukraine's election, but admit that the U.S. spends more than $1 billion each year on such activities, "trying to build democracy worldwide."
In Ukraine the money helped train groups and individuals opposed to the Russian-backed government candidate -- people who now call themselves part of the Orange revolution, the political party of Viktor Yushchenko. Most of the U.S. money is clandestinely funneled through organizations like the Eurasia Foundation or through groups ostensibly organized to provide election training, with human rights forums or with independent news outlets.
Remember the howls of indignation over "foreign influence" when John Kerry asserted that most Europeans would rather see him as President?
Would $1 billion have helped ensure that there were enough polling places and voting machines in Ohio and Florida and elsewhere in this country so that thousands of voters would not have been disenfranchised?
Isn't it ironic that George W. Bush believes so fervently in democracy that he's driven to bring elections at the point of a gun to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, but he doesn't trust the people to make the right decision in Ukraine?
Hey, wait a minute ... do you mean to say that political contributions might be used to distort the will of the people? Well, maybe over there, but certainly never here.
The Day (CT) - U.S. Money Helped Groups That Joined Opposition In Ukraine
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