I'm with numerous other posters who point out that the 2004 race should never have been so close. Bush was clearly a total disaster as president by then, and that case should have been made more strongly by the dems. It never was.

The Kerry campaign made numerous crucial errors of both omission and commission, and one of them was not accounting for the sure knowledge that the GOP was going to do everything possible to slant the vote in the battleground states.

the GOP plays dirty. Everyone knows that. They're PROUD of it. the Dems should have accounted for that in their planning, but they didn't.

Kerry was a poor candidate, but he should have won in a walk, and he probably would have, if he'd run a smart campaign. Instead, he ran a stupid campaign, and still just barely lost.

As someone else said, that speaks volumes. Just a little smarter campaign...and we wouldn't be having this conversation. We'd be talking about single-payer health care.. or real preparations for Peak-Oil.

Of course, if Willy'd kept his trouser-snake in his pants, Bush never would have won in 2000...you want to blame one person for Gore's loss, besides Gore himself and his advisors, blame Clinton. I loved the man, myself, but, jesus, how stupid can you be? Bill keeps it in his pants, or is at least a little smarter about where he puts it, and Gore wins going away in 2000.

alomst 7 years later...tsk, tsk

Manjoo does an excellent job of picking and choosing what 'evidence' he wants to rebut.

But in a jury trial, the jury considers ALL evidence, regardless of how much either sides discusses it.

Sorry, Manjoo.

The 2000 and 2004 elections were not done fairly. Now, this country is suffering as a result.

I'm sure Cheney liked the article, however

I'm agnostic about claims that Ohio was stolen. The Republican Party certainly seems capable of it. Particularly when you consider that arrogant turd Blackwell was responsible for counting the vote.

But I'm agnostic for two reasons:

a.) Suppose Ohio was counted for Kerry in the 2004 election. Would he have had the popular vote? I think arguing that the Republicans cheated enough to steal that is much more difficult than arguing that they stole enough electoral votes to give the victory to Bush. Would it have been that great to have a president who had won the electoral college but lost the popular vote again?

b.) There are so many issues with much more concrete evidence to nail the Bush Administration on, from the running of the war to the starting it, the environment, the list goes on and on. There are far more effective issues to bring up when arguing with a Republican friend or acquaintance.

Having said that, I do believe we should conduct more effective investigations into this. I don't trust the Democratic investigation much as I have lost faith in the Democratic party establishment. And I don't believe in slamming someone as a Fox operative just because they don't agree with me.

George

Mr. Manjoo,

RFK Jr. spent months writing and vetting his argument and evidence presented in this article. You turned around, I'm assuming an equally vetted article in what, 24 hours?

I'm looking for the footnotes as well, and it strikes me how absent they are in contrast to all the ones provided by RFK Jr. in his Rolling Stone article.

In addition, did you use public records as "a source"?

Mr. Manjoo: snarky fill-in temp 'War Room' writer and election expert combined? Who knew? He also has a dubunking turn-around time that would put Matt Drudge to shame.

Well, it goes to show that even the liberal media will throw the right-wing a bone now and then.

If you look at his history you will see that Farhad goes through phases where he generates articles that apparently are designed to provoke Salon readers. He's a gifted writer but for some reason indulges in serial baiting. This time he has also turned up the baiting intensity, and this torrent of messages is the result.

One can only speculate about why Farhad might be doing this (maybe Salon gives writers some reward for generating large numbers of reader messages?) but viewed with the perspective of history his provocation appears very calculated. His articles used to bother me until I realized this.

Whatever you think of the legitimacy of the 2004 election, most of us can agree that two very disturbing things happened:

1. Republicans "employed broad, methodical, illegal tactics" (as RFK Jr. phrased it), inappropriately attempting to influence election results -- from discarding valid voter registrations and provisional ballots, to deliberately targeting minority voters for intimidation, to neglecting to provide adequate voting equipment in good working condition; and

2. The mainstream media made no real attempt to shed light on these abuses.

So naturally, when a major article comes along (in Rolling Stone) to draw attention to these very real problems, exhorting millions of people to ask "why is this happening" and "how do we clean up the system," Salon responds by praising its author for thrusting these key issues into the national limelight, correct? Wrong.

Instead you've given us a piece (complete with hysterical headline) that "debunks" two assertions that the author never made: that new evidence has come to light, or that evidence proves that Kerry received more votes in Ohio. "You can't prove that Kerry actually won" screams Manjoo for what must be the tenth time now.

Folks, that's not the point. This problem is bigger than one state, or one election.

The real story here is the lack of adequate protection for America's democracy. Our system is vulnerable to partisan attacks, ones with real potential to change the outcome of elections. The Republican party is taking advantage of that weakness, using underhanded tactics to keep Democrats from voting, or from having their votes properly counted -- and the mainstream media has been totally averse to investigating or reporting that when it happens.

I had expected Salon to offer a serious examination of these problems. Instead, your article ignores them entirely and attacks straw men instead. I count on you for more than this, and I'm bitterly disappointed.