For me, the most telling piece of desperation here is this passage:

"As for Freeman's 660,000 to 1 statistic, it is irrelevant. ... The statistic measures the probability that the errors in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida occurred due to chance or random error, and according to Freeman, that probability is very low. But nobody argues the errors happened by chance. Everyone in the exit poll debate agrees that there was a systematic cause for the errors in the poll. Freeman, Kennedy, et al., claim that the systematic cause was fraud, while Mitofsky and many in the polling community claim the cause was a problem with the poll. So Freeman's argument that it would take preposterous odds to produce a random sampling error is a straw-man assertion."

You take the most important fact in this debate, the point of commensuration between two feuding groups, and simply declare that your explanation is right. In your mind, because Mitofsky claims the "systematic" error was in the polling (which is contentious, even though you claim an anonymous "many in the polling community" agree with him), the possibility the systematic error was fraud is therefore null and void. What?

How does a competing claim based on the same evidence make one side "a straw-man assertion"? If in fact fraud was committed, then Freeman's statistic is hugely important. And Kennedy and others have submitted a grocery list of fraudulent activity.

Freeman's statistic is essential, because it shows whatever happened in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida was DELIBERATE and not due to chance. Your assertion that the deliberate mistake was in the polling does not mean you are right and Freeman's number is irrelevant. It means Freeman's number points to _something_, and other evidence will determine what that something is.

Man, that city can't seem to buy a break.

What with all the Bills' silver medals.

Brett Hull's skate in the crease.

Now they get not only a MASH unit of injuries, but also a crummy delay of game penalty that derails what would have been one of the most exciting upsets in modern hockey.

If it's any consolation to Sabres fans, let me note that this Stanley Cup is the first all-former-WHA Cup, and the Leafs haven't been to the finals in 39 years. At least Buffalo has been there in the modern era.

I'm still waiting for the Leafs to be bested by the first all-women's-league Stanley Cup final.

Thank you for responding to my critique, Mr. Manjoo. I appreciate that you took the time to participate in this discussion.

I must, however, disagree with your response to my initial point about Freeman's statistical anomaly (and your accusation that it is a straw man). You write:

"Right, Freeman's statistic points to *something* -- but everyone agrees it was *something*. Nobody is saying it was just chance. The argument is about which something it was: A polling error, or an error in the count? (And the number does not show that what happened was *deliberate* -- it shows that what happened was *systematic,* meaning essentially that it occurred in the same way in those three states.)"

Here, again, you are falsely framing the debate. You took my initial point -- that Freeman's statistic is meaningful, and not a straw man, because it shows the results in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania could not have happened by chance -- and you derive a false conclusion from this: namely, that Freeman's number means either there was "a polling error, or an error in the count."

As in your article, your are using a semantic slight of hand to suggest the statistical impossibility of the exit polls being as wrong as they were in those three states had to be a result of one of two forms of "error". All Freeman is saying is that the results could not have happened naturally ("by chance"). You may interpret the alternative as "systematic," but that's not the only possibility. The other possiblity is a combination of deliberate fraud and other means of vote suppression.

My point is, you are saying Freeman's study proves definitively that we have only two choices to explain the results in these 3 states: polling error, or count error. But Freeman's study only proves that the results were not natural. You have made claims for his study that his study does not make.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/6/3/224759/7766

Gene,

Do you honestly think the Democratic Party would ever publicly state that an election was stolen? Whatever they think privately, they're never going to say "stolen" in public. That would be election suicide. Look at how much flak Gore took simply for contesting the outcome in 2000 (cries of Sore/Loserman). And Gore just wanted to count all the votes in Florida! (God forbid democracy should take a few weeks.)

So, Manjoo's use of the conclusions from the Democratic Party's farce of a report (and Kennedy's omission of said conclusions) is meaningless. Consider the source.

If you want truth, you're not going to find it in a political party. They have to (or, choose to) play the game.

Excellent work, Dr. Freeman. I look forward to your book.

I don't get it. Why do the kids of America enjoy watching rich brats on TV? Laguna Beach, The Hills, everything with Paris Hilton or Donald Trump. What gives? Where is the pleasure in watching rich people air their contempt for the rest of us? What the hell is going on out there?

That said, I sometimes enjoy watching the Laguna Beach Aftershow on MTV Canada. I don't know if you have it on MTV USA, but it can be an engaging exercise in deconstructing a truly insufferable show, or just venting on how vapid the show is, and it means I don't have to watch an entire episode of Laguna Beach.