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The claims made in RFK's extensive piece in Rolling Stone are, if only taken as claims, still overwhelm and I do not see how one of your Salon writers, usually much less ready to "headline" a dismissal of a point of view than others, can so easily dismiss the overall finding of the article that a REAL SERIOUS investigation is very important to clearing the air for a large number of enraged and disenchanted voters.
To my mind voter disenchantment is a cancer upon our electoral system, it has been for nearly a generation, and in 2004, after four years of Bush, Howard Dean, gave many voters a feeling that their personal hard work and effort could break the stale cynical state of the backroom political process returning American's hope for a better, more people focused, less corporate, just and healthy nation. Coming from nowhere to become a national name, using the internet with help from a technically savvy bunch of upstarts, he made it to Iowa and changed the way campaigns would be run in the future. 2004 was polled as being the highest voter turnout for President in American history, and I assume partially, because Dean's forces followed him to back the winner in the Primary. This November, if Manjoo's view that the 2004 election was not as badly slanted as RFK states, remains unchallenged, the banner numbers we'd seen in the recent past elections may be a thing of the past.
Is Farhhad Manjoo implying that the reason voters feel disenchanted is not because, after the unpresidented 2000 appointment of the President by the Supreme Court, we watched dumbfounded 4 years later, on election eve as Kerry lost, though an overwhelming amount of pundits and exit polls spoke to the contrary? Or is he blaming John Conyers, Barbara Boxer, Mark Krispin Miller, Howard Dean, John Edwards and now RFK Junior for our renewed cynicism, by asking questions as to why something smelled rotten in Ohio, and thus making voters suspicious, ruining our faith in our votes being counted for our intended candidate, and making one wonder whether we would even be able or allowed to vote in the future if it wasn't OK with those that held power?
I think most Salon readers would agree that the real possibility that an investigation into this subject is considerably dim even if the opposition wins back the House in November, as there are so many other dire policies that need to be stopped, investigated or pointed out as unconstitutional, but I don't think even FM can deny, that the administration has a record of, and has in fact constituted an agenda, to put in place key adversaries to ensure their continued rule both in the courts and at the state, local and private level, to administer elections, especially in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 as current and past court cases are revealing still to this day.
It is my feeling that RFK, Jr's high profile compilation should be pointed to as a high profile milestone that we should look to as a template to avoid any further errosion in our faith that our votes are being counted and are not manipulated or suppressed to encourage a specific partisan outcome. I'd felt a glow of confidence when Barbara Boxer stood up in the Senate to ask for hearings on the 2004 election. She may not have been given much time as we had lost our voice in Washington by then, but the fact that we had both Houses (Conyers bringing it up in the House) representing what many of us found to be a questionable outcome for reasons far beyond mere partisanship, went a long way to giving us hope that it would not happen again. Manjoo's article worries me in it's ignorance as to how important the truth about this issue is to so many voters decisions as to whether to even bother next time around.
Would the writer prefer we give short shrift to all this evidence before careful appropriate legal scrutiny or is he saying ignoring it is going to make the crimes committed less prevalent and make voters more willing to pull the handle even if it RFK's accusations are, as he states, somewhat true? I personally believe, either way, Farhad Manjoo's attitude is one this administration would like to see perpetuated.
