At the risk of "piling on" (I already posted a fairly blistering response to Manjoo at 3:40 a.m. Sunday morning), I've just finished visiting three websites (dailykos, Mercury Rising and Mark Crispin Miller's blog) that are specifically addressing Manjoo's article and all 3 have pretty thoroughly debunked what Manjoo has to say.

In fact, Mark Crispin Miller is referring to Manjoo's article as a "hatchet job" and there's also a clear implication in some of the other things I've read outside of Salon that Manjoo is willfully and very deliberately distorting some of his facts.

Given the above and the number of posts here at Salon, isn't it incumbent on Salon to review the facts presented by Farhad Manjoo and review what the people have to say who are rebutting his version of the facts? If it turns out that Manjoo's article is substantially correct then I think you owe it to him to publicly stand behind him and to publish the sources you used to verify his facts. If, on the other hand, the people disputing Manjoo's conclusions are substantially correct then I think you need to decide if Manjoo's article was a deliberate hatchet job or simply the result of careless, lazy reporting. Either way, that would need to be publicly acknowedged by you as well, Salon, or you stand to lose most if not all of your credibility.

As for me, I'm not just angry about the tone and substance of Manjoo's article anymore, now I'm also angry about the number of posters who say they're quitting Salon. I obviously don't have the time to verify this, but I have to assume that some, most or all of them regularly post their thoughts, ideas and opinions here and I'm angry at what we'll ALL be losing if and when they go.

So how about stepping up to the plate, Salon (and on the front page, please ... not buried in this forum that's already up to 37 pages.)

RE--

"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."

my take is that they publish opinions that they or we dont necessarily agree with in order to support open dialogue. that's probably a good thing.

this list of letters is certainly a good example of dialogue--a necessary dialogue probably

"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."

-- gene

How magnanimous of you.

I wonder why you admit there is documented "voting shenanigans and attempts at outright theft" yet you don't share others' concerns that our elections have been privatized and aren't able to be validated. Dems, Repubs, I don't care who is doing the shady stuff, I want to know that people's votes are being counted accurately. Do you?

Salon has no credibility on this issue. Your coverage of it has been a source of frustration from the beginning. Manjoo jumped on this from the get go, well before much of the data was gathered and presented. He was vehement from the start in denouncing any particulars and merits of the argument as well as those who defended it. Manjoo is not the fellow Salon should repeatedly allow to comment on the issue. Salon owes its readers a more evolved, less rabidly biased discussion of Kennedy's presentation of the data.

First, kudos to RFK Jr for re-igniting this needed conversation,

and shame on Kerry's early concession which really went

far in sweeping this mess under the rug. Let us, as a nation,

break from our denial and deal with these massive dilemmas!

Second, I can appreciate Manjoo's attempt at answering many

of the important questions raised -- at least he has the guts

to talk about the problems in depth. However, he is clearly too

dismissive of those trying to get to the truth, and he stops far

short of getting there himself. Either he gets lost in a zeal to

debunk that he seals himself off from objectivity, or he is being

disingenuous. Neither scenario is good.

Now, to the oddities:

1. Manjoo cites average response rates in Kerry vs. Bush strongholds,

but his numbers don't hold water. The point that Kennedy makes is

that the strongholds are at least 80% to 20% in favor of one candidate.

You can't simply say Kerry voters responded 59% of the time and Bush

voters 53%... and there you have an average 56% response. There would

be far more Bush voters responding, thus weighting the average response

rate at that site closer to 53%.

2. Manjoo's point that the individual state exit polls were within their

margin of error is disingenous and inconsistent, since Kennedy makes the point that the national exit poll had a margin of error of 1% and the

discrepancies were far outside of the margin of error (no, not as far as

Ukraine, but that's irrelevant).

3. Manjoo uses the well-worn tactic of saying if there was fraud,

Democrats (and god-forbid African American Democrats!) had to

be complicit. Perhaps, but we all know well that Democrats (and

god forbid African American Democrats!) can also be corrupt.

4. He doesn't even address some of the major points in Kennedy's

piece, notably the touch screens switching off Kerry votes, among

many other points.

It's hopeful to see that this issue hasn't faded away into the aether

just yet, but we're running out of time before they destroy Ohio election

documents (September 2006)!

Jesus, if only I could believe the election was stolen!

It is a bitter pill to swallow to believe that your fellow Americans would elect this fucking nightmare of a president for another term.

But I believe they did.... Until people are no longer blinded by religion and bogus social issues, this is the fallout that is going to rain down on the rest of us.

What has happened to people? Why is everyone asleep? Why do 18 and 19 year old kids continue to get blown to bits by I.E.D.'s in Iraq? What has happened to us?

Maybe 9/11 has turned half the country into fundamentalist asshats...

So the rest of us grasp for anything, anything that will make it easier to accept that we elected this guy, this turd of a man and his yappy, close-minded, hostile ideas.

Hopefully, Americans will soon come to their senses, and we can do to this turd what we do to the rest: flush him away.