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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I'm a big fan of conspiracy theories. However, regarding the 2000 and 2004 elections, I won't put on my tinfoil hat unless and until Messers. Gore and Kerry act as if they actually believe the election was stolen from them. Gore rolled over and played dead; Kerry didn't even have the balls to tackle the Swift Boat bastards let alone the questionable voting irregularities.
See, if I spent all that time and money to win an election and I felt it had been taken from me illegally, I'd be the loudest person out there.
Nary a peep from either Democratic candidate...let alone the bulk of the rest of our Democratic Senators and Representatives about election reform. Oh sure, little bleats here and there, but that's it.
Look, if the candidates directly affected don't give two shits, why should I, evidence or no evidence?
And RFKjr took a big dive off the cliff of insanity a couple years ago with his utter lack of math & statistics knowledge on display regarding child innoculations and autism. That poor man is just a few sandwiches shy of a picnic, and I'm sad to see him go. I'm sorry Salon has willingly provided the diving board for his leap into insanity, twice now.
Mr.Manjo tries to discredit everything that Mr. Kennedy writes by referring back to the election of 2000. Just what planet has Mr. Manjo been residing on. 2000 was a major fraudulent election.
Another of his arguments that is downright comical is his commentary about one Black man who said he would never defraud his people. Does the name Ken Blackwell ring a bell Mr. Manjo? He told his people to go to hell in order to further himself in the Republican party. Why any Black man or woman would want to belong to the racist republican party defies the imagination.
I don't beleive for a minute that Bush won in 2000 or 2004. A lot of the fraud happened in my hometown in the Florida panhandle. Additionally 2002 mid term elections were riddled with fraud. There is no other explanation for the overnight, republican miracles that occured.
The electronic machines were designed with fraud in mind. Why else would a company which has made similar machines for banks for years suddenly find itself incapable of producing a paper trail?
In this abstruse article, Manjoo often says "there is no credible evidence" that Blackwell and his crew did this or that; therefore, the election was not stolen. Please! I am not inclined to give these hooligans any benefit of the doubt; therefore that there "may" be no credible evidence does not absolve anybody of anything. Even Manjoo admits that there were long lines in a disproportionate number of blue precincts but he claims that this would not have made up the difference. The fact that the long lines occurred disproportionately should raise anybody's eyebrows. Yes, we may need proof to say that Kerry won the state but the proof already exists that Ohio's entrenched Republicans did not do right by all its voters. Was it incompetence or was there some other factor, perhaps corruptible Democratic poll watchers bought off in key areas or a few fixed voting machines. And who knows how many voters stayed away because of negative voting factors. For the writer to say "no" so emphatically implies that he has made up is mind or has an ax to grind and will not listen to any other point of view, period, end of argument.
It is unfortunate that this writer chooses to attack RFK Jr. when there are so many distortions being perpetrated by the other side on numerous issues that he could address. Why attack our own?
Farhad Manjoo lays his argument out methodically but we have also heard this before. He cites well-known election fraud debunkers and probably wrote this one on autopilot. He has already been on the record as being dismissive of claims that the vote was stolen. It was obvious that he was going to come out swinging against RFK Jr. It was only a question of when Manjoo was going to write this article.
We will never know for sure if the vote was stolen or not. But there is more than enough proof that some weird stuff happened and that is enough reason to investigate the vote. Manjoo's claim that the vote wasn't stolen is a position of arrogance. Until we have more evidence--and more analysis by people less prejudiced that Manjoo--responible, rational citizens can only maintain a position of skeptical agnosticism.
This article does nothing to advance the discussion about the 2004 election. What a disappointment.
Until we have more evidence--and more analysis by people less prejudiced that Manjoo--responible, rational citizens can only maintain a position of skeptical agnosticism.
Did you actually read the article? Manjoo cites the Democratic Party, no less, in showing that while there were problems with the election, there was no sign of the election being stolen. Significantly, Kennedy was quick to cite some evidence from these sources but then ignored these conclusions-- from the very same reports!
That shows right there that Kennedy wasn't interested in an objective report; his is a dishonest hack job with only the veneer of objectivity. He buries you under footnotes/citations but assumes you won't actually go to read the entire thing being cited. Bully to Manjoo for calling his bluff.
A Good Critique of Manjoo at Daily Kos
Which means it's about as reliable as that guy on the corner who thinks he's Napoleon ...
-- that guy
I take it back. Upon reading the Daily Kos article in detail, the guy makes an good attempt at being fair. I think he's still inclinded to believe in conspiracy theories, but he does allow Manjoo to speak for himself and a fair attempt at answering him.
doesn't effectively make the case. That's too bad, from someone who was on the ground in Ohio '04 and whose friends were either litigants or litigators in Moss v. Bush.
Palast claims roughly a quarter million votes were stolen; Kennedy adds another 100K for a figure of 350,000, but Kerry would have to have polled a landslide 65% of those phantom votes to have eked out a couple thousand vote victory. And votes not voted aren't votes -- whether due to registration problems, intimidation, disinformation, or long lines.
While I disagree with Mr. Manjoo's conclusion, he is correct that
to prove Blackwell stole the state for Bush, Kennedy's got to do more than show instances of Blackwell's mischief. He's got to outline where Blackwell's actions could possibly have added up to enough votes to put the wrong man in office.
I'm afraid RFK Jr. hasn't.
This is not to say Manjoo's piece is not without omissions, for example, missing that not only R.C. § 3503.19 but § 3503.21 detail procedures for cancelling a registration and both require the board of elections to attempt to contact the voter first. We don't know from either Kennedy's article or Manjoo's critique whether or not that occurred.
I hope Manjoo will apply the same level of analysis he applied to RFK Jr. to his own work in the future. And I truly hope someone will take RFK Jr.'s work as a second- or third draft and put together a convincing piece. It's out there...
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