I, like others, was also struck by Mr. Manjoo's use of polling and voting discrepancies in the 2002 election to "prove" that similar discrepancies in the 2004 election must have been innocent happenstance! Talk about a ridiculous standard of reliability!

No, you nitwit, it's to show that there was nothing unique about '04. It's simply good investigative journalism to see how things happened in the past to see if there is then a huge discrepancy in the case being investigated. It's looking for patterns.

A perfect example of this is how people in 2000 alleged that many of the panhandle counties in Florida were "stolen" because, while they're registered heavily Democratic, they voted overwhelmingly for Bush. Conspiracy!! Until you look at presidential elections back to the '60s and see that those same counties tended to vote for the Republican candidate in all previous elections.

And I'm amazed at the lack of reading comprehension skills among people who claim to be so smart. Manjoo never says things were simply hunky-dory during the '04 election. He cites numerous examples of incompetence, stupidity and faulty assumptions. But none of that equals "stolen"--a deliberate act of theft.

Finally, note that in most newspapers the reporter does not write the headline on his article. Let's give Manjoo the benefit of the doubt on the headline of the article with its definitive "NO" and assume, as with most journalistic articles, it was written by the copy editor.

Mr. Manjoo and Gerald Posner would have much to discuss, but I'd have no interest in what either says. What a hack job of refuting an excellently written and vetted article such as Mr. Kennedy's. Only Teddy Kennedy among the Democrats can hold his head up and say proudly he didn't vote for war. Now, Robert Jr. has taken a bold step in naming names of the criminals responsible for the biggest theft in American history and Mr. Manjoo is right there to swiftboat him (as that seems to be his job at the HuffPo, how in the name of Hell did AH sign off on his hiring?).

It sucks when the "liberal press" does the hatchet work for Fox News.

Shame on you.

The article RFK Jr. is more than a "hit parade of theories swirling about the blogosphere". After reading Mr. Manjoo's article, I was surprised to see the list of references at the end of RFK's article. With the references listed, and pieced together as such, RFK's article was more of a research piece than an opinion piece as Manjoo has implied.

The piece should have been treated with more respect, because this is a very important topic, and the Rolling Stone article was actually very analytical.

Here are some possible suggestions for Salon.

• Get some writers who are willing to reference their articles, like RFK Jr.

• Why not get RFK Jr. to write for Salon?

Manjoo is apparently working on his resume to go to FoxNews after Salon is gone. With this bit of dismissiveness, he could go work there now. Salon has better writers writing letters.

I dont think this is a place to out fox Fox. If it were, this is how it would be done:

He's more content to take us through a hit parade of the most popular, and the most dismissible, theories purporting to show that John Kerry won Ohio, theories that have been swirling about the blogosphere ever since the race was called. I scoured his Rolling Stone article for some novel story or statistic or theory that would prove, finally, that George W. Bush was not the true victor. But nothing here is new.

RFK, Jr.'s sloppy research isn't offset by Manjoo's sloppy rebuttal.

One need not outright "steal" an election. As has been shown, one need only make life difficult, annoying, even a little punishing to supress voter turnout. I'm sure there was malice in Ohio but also the usual run of stupidity that helped supress the Kerry vote. That was helped by the less than stirring Kerry campaign.

It's too bad that Salon didn't think through the flaws in Kennedy's reporting skills before it sponsored, along with the Rolling Stone, the autisim "investigation" he produced.

I come to Salon to have my world-view completely and unquestioningly upheld. How dare you publish something that doesn't fit into my view of left-wing orthodoxy? By not paying for something that you can get for free anyway, I'm making a bold statement and not, as it may appear to a rational observer, engaging in intellectual masturbation in a public forum. Manjoo is obviously a right-wing hack becuase only a right-wing hack would disagree with a conspiracy theory that me and all my friends down at the independent book store/coffee shop know is true. From now on I'll be keeping my online activities only to DU where I can be sure that I'll never have the horrible misfortune of being confronted with something I don't agree with.

<<far worse crimes were committed in Ohio.>>

Yeah, like the vans hired by a Republican get-out-the-vote effort in Milwaukee that had their tires slashed by Democratic operatives.

http://www2.jsonline.com:80/news/state/nov04/271676.asp

Like in Florida in 2000, when Al Gore sought recounts only in counties he'd already won.

Like the lawyer for the Gore campaign who issued a memo advising Democratic poll watchers how to discredit overseas absentee ballots (which tend to be military and Republican.)

Those same Gore lawyers tried to throw away EVERY SINGLE VOTE in Seminole County (which voted for Bush) because they alleged a Republican helped people fill out the APPLICATION for an absentee ballot (not the ballot itself).

As always, the moonbat Left is highly selective in its outrage and in the evidence it cites.

Barndog,

There seems to be a familiar pattern of harrasment of democratic voters, and then claims that it is going both ways. The following is from the link you pointed to:

Also early election day, Milwaukee police were called to a John Kerry campaign office, 633 S. Hawley Road, at 5:40 a.m. because at least two people were blocking the parking lot exit, preventing Kerry supporters from leaving the parking lot and screaming and spitting on cars, said Sgt. Willie Murphy. The officers removed the disruptive people but no arrests were made, he said.

Why were these people not arrested by police? By not making arrests, the police are legitimizing election day antics. When they start the day at 5:40, why shouldn't they expect to be in for a long day of reprisals. If these people had been arrested at 5:40 am, there probably would have been no problem.