Letters to the Editor
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This is Depressing
If you want to pretty much call Farhad Manjoo a right-wing hack on this issue, maybe you should actually try reading some of his other work on the subject.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/21/intimidation/print.html
After reading that piece, one would have to believe that if anyone would be taking these clowns out to the woodshed for a substantive beating, it would be Manjoo. But he's looked at the evidence in Ohio and found it lacking.
That's not to say that he believes there was no fraud, it's just that RFK's major accusations about instances of fraud and suppression in Ohio -- ones that could have turned the election -- are easily rebutted.
Frankly, I think Manjoo is pretty well versed on this issue, and in this case, is simply dealing in factual errors, distortions and some fairly blatant omissions in Kennedy's piece. What in God's name is so damn awful about that?
You people leap down the throats of the Republicans when they engage in less than truthful tactics, but it's okay for our side to engage in these shenanigans?
Now do I think Kennedy is guilty of the same kind of execrable behavior that many Republicans commit on a daily basis? No, I don't. I think Kennedy is guilty here of nothing more than shoddy work. But that doesn't make him any less ripe for criticism.
And wading through the drivel that makes up the vast majority of these letters, I see almost zero objective thinking or discussion of the facts. Only a few people seem to approach this issue rationally.
So I have to say, the almost total lack of critical thinking that's rearing it's head here is not only embarrassing, it's pretty depressing.
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not so
And Gore just wanted to count all the votes in Florida!
Not so. He requested a recount only in the four Democratic counties he'd already won. His lawyers issued a memo showing how to disqualify overseas absentee ballots (which tend to me military and Republican). His lawyers also tried to throw out EVERY SINGLE VOTE in Seminole County (which voted for Bush) because a Republican worker ALLEGEDLY helped people fill out the APPLICATION for an absentee ballot, not the ballot itself.
Yeah, Gore wanted every vote counted like I have a nice bridge in Broolyn for sale.
Some more shenanigans from 2000: Democratic workers giving homeless men in Milwaukee cigarettes to go vote, even though they weren't registered. (Caught on camera.)
The U. of Wisconsin students who boasted of voting multiple times for Gore. (Gore won Wisconsin in 2000 by only about 2,000 votes.)
The lawsuit in St. Louis, filed in the name of a DEAD MAN, getting the polls to stay open an extra two hours IN THAT CITY ONLY. Said lawsuit was prepared days before the election but was post dated as if it were prepared only the afternoon of election day, alleging long lines. By the way, that little dirty trick gave you Dems John Ashcroft as Attorney General, since he lost his bid for Missouri governor by only a few thousand votes IN ST. LOUIS!
As for 2004, where's the outrage over voting machines delivered to precincts in Philadelphia that came preloaded with hundreds of votes for Kerry?
I'll take all the whining more seriously when I see an equal concern for voting shenanigans and attempts at outright theft--all documented--on the part of Dems.
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Should Salon be the Left's Fox News?
So many of the replies seem to indicate that's the direction they'd like Salon to take, to ignore veracity and instead stick to the Fox like news script.
"Salon, don't DARE print anything that goes against what I believe or I'll BOYCOTT you"
This is hardly a comforting thought. I don't watch Fox news because it can't be trusted to show anything other than Republican talking points. I read Salon because I want objective analysis that includes looking at both sides of the issues.
Do I always agree with Salon? No, but any news organization or body that attempts to have objectivity will by nature sometimes cause disagreement with with its viewers.
I'd much rather Salon continue to publish objective truth than try to feed me what I may feel is truth.
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Farhad Manjoo's most recent
I cannot claim authorship of this piece ( http://fraudbusterbob.com/blog/2006/06/05/manjoo-errs-in-fact-knows-very-little-about-ohio-election-law/#more-84 ) in rebuttal of Farhad Manjoo's denial of election theft in Ohio in '04 -- that's Bob Fitrakis' right and privilege -- but I am completely in accord with his sentiments, and find his evidence more persuasive than Manjoo's. I do wonder, though, why it is that Salon, to which I've subscribed for a few years now, continues to publish Mr. Manjoo's writing when he seems to generally support the right and its fanciful take on reality.
Thanks,
Ron Barth, Jr.
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Stolen or Handed Over?
The 2004 election was not so much stolen as given away by a Democratic party that would rather see a Republican in office than climb out of its comfy chair and teeter toward some genuine change. In order to be nominated for the US presidency, a candidate must satisfy a number of unofficial criteria, including an aristocratic pedigree and years of calculated sucking up to party grandfathers who periodically put their gray-to-balding heads together and decide whose turn it is to play the Palace.
Think back, if you will, to the Washington Idol tour of 2004, in which a handful of presidential wannabes competed to see who could improvise the greatest number of political innanities in a single hour. Almost all of these contestants had more charisma than John Kerry, who looks and acts a lot like one of those big stone heads on Easter Island, and one or two--Kucinich in particular--actually ventured an interesting idea now and then. It was John Kerry, however, who proved the most talented at stretching non-threatening homilies to interminable lengths which, as it turns out, is exactly what the judges were looking for.
In other words, the Democrats handed the Bushies a stealable election by nominating a boring party workhorse who would protect the status quo whether he won or lost. I'm still not convinced that GW Rove stole 2004 outright, but it sure seems as if the Democrats and/or John Kerry took a dive. In spite of numbers that were close enough to warrant an automatic recount,Kerry folded within a couple of hours of the final poll closing, muttering something about sparing the American people the agony of another contested election as he rushed toward back door. In the presence of so many solid reasons for dispute,including the victors' known affinity for political kleptomania, Kerry rolled over and went to bed early.
The truth is that Democrats are Republicans who are o.k. with homosexuality and abortion. Combined, they represent an entrenched aristocracy who are educated at the same schools, belong to the same clubs,attend the same social gatherings, and marry one another's children in strategic alliances reminiscent of Hapsburgs or Plantagenets. Every four years the American people are encouraged to choose the aristocrat who is least likely to crush their spirit, but in the end it's a pretend choice, more or less like the choice that a smart parent offers a stubborn two year old who responds to the illusion of control.
Was the 2004 election stolen? I'm not sure that it matters any more. If it wasn't stolen, it was bought and paid for and neither of these options has much to do with the principles of democracy. A couple of years from now the parties will once again present their favorite finalists to the American people and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Ryan Seacrest hosts the whole she-bang. Me, I'd like to see them all go and unless there's an upset, I'm probably going to just penciil my own name onto the 2008 ballot. Either my name or Chris Doherty's. Now there's a candidate who really was robbed.