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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
1. Bush stole the 2000 election.
2. Bush "won" the 2004 election by one state, which he won by 136,483 votes or 2.5%.
3. Bush would not have won Ohio but for the fact that he was the incumbent.
4. Bush stole the 2004 election.
Q
Uncle Albert made me chuckle. Indeed, imagine how horrible it would be if "N.Y., Boston, D.C., Chicago, L.A., S.F." -- i.e., the places where many Americans actually live -- were allowed to play a fair and equal role in electing U.S. presidents.
Albert obviously prefers the present system, in which a Republican vote in Wyoming carries four times the electoral weight of a Democratic vote in California; campaigns are confined to a handful of "contested" states;
No, a vote in Wyoming counts as much as a vote in NY--one man, one vote. You show concern that candidates campaign heavily in only certain states but miss the point if, as I pointed out, we went to the popular vote the candidates would campaign in only a handful of cities, bypassing entire regions of the country.
Is it perfect? No, nothing is, but the Electoral College is a more fair way of representing the entire country than the popular vote.
Fahrad,
I am very dissappointed in you and in Salon for publishing your drivel. I usually read Salon because I have a little bit of hope that I will see some real journalism and perhaps thoughtful and insightful commentary. If I feel the need to read psueudo-journalistic expositions I may take a look at the NY Times or the Washington Post as they have been aiding and abetting the criminals currently occupying the Whitehouse and the administration of the executive branch of our supposedly democratic government since G.W. Bush stole the election in Florida.
As an aside I am equally angry with Al Gore and John Kerry for not forcing a confrontation with regard to the elections in 2000 and 2004. Our democracy is more important than whether or not the public knows who was elected president within 24 hours of such an election. Al Gore had the popular vote in 2004 and the voting processes that took place in the states that swung the election in Bush's favor are so questionable that at the least we should have had either a run-off vote or a second election, perhaps with U.N. observers to make sure that the elections were conducted legally and honestly.
Progressive and so-called left journalists that give creedence to the idea that G.W. Bush legally and honestly won the elections in 2000 and 2004 are doing a disservice to the public and in particular to the hundreds of thousands of minority Americans and service men and woman whose votes were not properly counted.
Are you interested in living in a true democracy that treats all people with honesty, integrity and compassion or do you truly enjoy living in our emerging police state that is going to continue curtailing your ability to actually work as a journalist rather than as an arm of the entertainement industry?
Cheers
B.
If JFK Jr. made mistakes in his article ...
If!? Manjoo shows definively how Kennedy cherry-picked information from various studies/reports, using only those parts that fit his preconceived thesis and ignoring those parts that didn't--in the very same reports.
Kennedy didn't commit a boo-boo. He dishonestly reported some "facts" and ignored others.
When Farhad Manjoo states his claim that . . . "it is far more accurate to see their actions as part of a larger picture of incompetence in the midst of massive changes in election procedures -- especially changes in voting technology -- than as part of a GOP plot," therein lies the crux in my opinion. The changes in voting technology are the very reason the election could have been stolen--whether it was carefully constructed incompetence or another carefully constructed way to steal an election--there is so much indisputable confusion . . . because logic and order don't even enter into the picture when the actual way the votes are made and counted can be called into question. Being from Georgia, one of the first states to "embrace" the Diebold voting scam, I voted with a paper absentee ballot in the last election (which would have been entered into the same corrupt electronic system). My vote for Kerry didn't matter because I live in a Red state and was very likely not counted at all (because of the electoral college system we have in place). In states where the vote was closely contested, it was easy to make changes in Bush's favor without there being any solid proof that it actually happened . . . that's all I need to know in "claiming or perceiving" that it could have happened. And does it really doesn't matter whether Bush won the 2004 election when he didn't "win" the 2000 election to begin with? Our Supreme Court put him in office.
What we operate on here is that "this is America and nothing like this could ever happen here." Wasn't it incompetence in the midst of massive changes in governmental procedures that let 9/11 "happen here" in the first place? This gave Bush an in for the next election in 2004. Wasn't it a false patriotism that gave him any momentum at all? Or wasn't a complacent media? Or a very sophisticated manipulation of the media that is beholden to corporate interests? The list goes on and on.
It will all come out in the wash . . . I just hope this country doesn't continue down the road it has been on with the Bush administration and we regain some sort of resiliancy within our system of checks and balances--from the most fundamental aspects to holding the media accountable for really doing their jobs as journalists. With Bush in office and the Republicans controlling both the House and the Senate (therefore controlling corporate media), we have none.
Whether it's "Claim vs Reality" or "Perception vs Reality" (like the Rolling Stone ad series years back), there is no real justice under the current administration. We live under totalitarian rule. How are we supposed to affect change if we can't even get a sane, verifiable voting system in place? We have to examine it from all sides--from getting a verifiable way to count our votes to eliminating as much voter apathy as possible. It's hard to care when you don't think it even matters if you vote or not (I certainly don't think that because I'm an eternal optimist, but so many people I know who are more pragmatic about things, do think that way).
Darryl Moland
Atlanta, Georgia
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