Letters to the Editor
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I agree
with many other writers who don't even bother reading Mr. Manjoo anymore. I find his writing tedious and his analysis often self serving as opposed to insightful. This latest tome is just another sad example.
I gave him another shot because of the subject matter and all I can say is- based on the weak excuses and group-think offered as substance in Mr. Manjoos' piece - that I am now, more than ever, convinced that the 2004 election was stolen, on purpose, just as it was in 2000 and will be until we stop making sorry excuses for the mess we are in.
This article is nothing more than another "journalist" who missed the story in 2000, missed the story in 2004, and now, because they can't admit their culpability, seeks to deny the truth so as to continue to claim a smug superiority. This is the sorry fare of the NYTimes, Washington Post, and weekly newsmags that serve as apoligists to reaffirm their own tunnel vision; one would expect better from Salon.
Let's deal with the truth, people: They stole it in 2000, in 2002, 2004, and they're not going anywhere. "Journalists" like Mr. Manjooand and Salon would serve democracy and debate better by facing those facts and publishing the truth, while they still can (i.e. before Mr. Gonzales at Justice comes calling.....)
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Thanks to Mr. Manjoo I am finally reassured that the '04 election was not stolen!
Mr. Manjoo,
You apparently selected your sources well, and examined the Ohio '04 election very objectively. Good job! For awhile there I thought it was strange that the exit polls didn't match the results, but as you point out, there are exceptions all the time. Maybe not as many exceptions as occurred simultaneously throughout the United States in '04, but hey, one or two exceptions are enough for those of us who dread the effort it would take to counter Republican vote fraud.
Being from Chicago originally, I can relate to your learned helplessness. Vote fraud was a way of life there, on the Democratic side, for decades. Things worked - we got our snow shoveled, and garbage picked up. You'd have to be nuts to raise a stink against a powerful machine that regularly trashed the integrity of the vote. Now we have a similar dynamic functioning on the federal level. Well, not completely, services are being cut and things aren't working. But still, you have to admire the slick Republican-run electoral process. You are so right, Mr. Manjoo, why must we dig into this tiresome issue once again? You know as well as I that to do so will only infuriate those currently in power.
Forget Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell's many assaults of the rights of Ohio voters, forget the secrecy behind the electronic voting systems and their "proprietary software" that only the vendors themselves are permitted to administrate, forget the discrepancies of the "down ticket" results. What is important is that we respect the mainstream media's self-imposed gag order on the '04 election fraud and move on with our lives.
I envision a great career in journalism for you Mr. Manjoo. The American media will swing its doors wide for a "journalist" who knows how to play by the rules. Congratulations!
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one in 660,000: a straw man assertion?
What can one say? If one strips away the table-pounding about sound science, Freeman basically said something trivial: the exit poll results differed from the official returns, beyond random sampling error. He probably didn't intend it as a straw man assertion. But various gee-whiz statistics along these lines are routinely cited as evidence that the election was stolen -- and they aren't. So, maybe the statistic is irrelevant and/or a straw man assertion, not necessarily both. But if it is only irrelevant, then why are we arguing about it? Hmm. Does anyone think that RFK cited this figure to set up a teaching moment about sources of survey error? I don't. On the contrary, he seems to do everything he can to convey the impression that non-random survey error is unthinkable.
Two paragraphs earlier, RFK asserts, "Against these [exit poll] numbers, the statistical likelihood of Bush winning was less than one in 450,000." The "Tale of the Exit Polls" chart says, "Since the poll results were beyond the margin of error, Bush's odds of victory were less than one in 450,000. But when the ballots were tallied, the four states 'flipped' to Bush...." Irrelevant? a straw man assertion? outright gibberish? You decide. (These "odds," of course, assume that the polls are guaranteed bias-free.)
Let's try an historical analogy. The 1936 Literary Digest poll, with over two million respondents, gave Alf Landon an estimated 57% of the popular vote. Since the poll results were far beyond the margin of error, FDR's odds of beating Alf Landon were longer than my calculator can figure. But when the ballots were tallied, state after state "flipped" to Roosevelt. As much as we can say in sound science that something is impossible, it is impossible that the 1936 discrepancies could have been due to chance or random error. So what?
Ah, but isn't exit polling an "exact science" with "exquisitely accurate" results? Well, no, as Manjoo explains. As far as I can tell, RFK mainly uses his statistical factoids to convey an aura of scientific certainty where it isn't warranted. False certainty should not be part of the progressive agenda.
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Reply to Voice of Reason
I stand corrected. I forgot that online sources are not always footnoted at the end of articles. However, I have read both articles and my statement concerning ad-hominen dismissals of sound statistical research stands. Furthermore, the very fact that we are having this debate is evidence enough that large numbers of people (millions of us) have lost faith in the equity of electoral politics. That includes everything from voting, to gerrymandering, to the corrupting influence of dirty money. This whole business has gone far beyond the simple point-counter-point of argument. It has gone beyond all REASON.
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So what's new?
Salon staff writer, Farhad Manjoo, places a great deal of importance on his claim that Robert F. Kennedy introduces nothing new over what has appeared in the blogasphere already. What an interesting and novel observation! If true, then Kennedy seems to have indeed given us something new and very important. Specifically an article in Rolling Stone magazine and Manjoo has answered it, not in print, but at least in Salon. A public discussion has started and it's only two years too late!
Maybe in a few years we can have some of these issues actually discussed in print or on the air by the "official" corporate media. What a joy it would be to have these important issues that are of so much interest to so many people actually discussed in the popular mass media - even if they have already had some attention in the blogasphere.