I'm glad to see RFK, Jr. answer Farhad Manjoo in this skillful retort.

Quick reaction: Kennedy, interesting and persuasive; Manjoo, irritating.

I am really enjoying the discussion that Manjoo's articles are provoking. I think this is an important debate that we have to have because while it's essential that we leave the 2004 election behind us and look ahead, we won't be able to control what happens in the next election until we decide what happened in the last one, and thus prepare ourselves to react.

I think Manjoo presents his arguments thoroughly and carefully, and as in any debate over statistical analysis there is going to be a lot of room for interpretation. Hopefully these details will fall to the wayside as we focus as liberals on how to fix the election process. I think bashing on the people who are bringing these issues to the fore is getting in the way of meaningful discussion about the different points of view we have before us to discuss and examine.

This discussion would be better approached as a quest for truth, not a contest of righteousness. Calling for Manjoo's head in lieu of attempting to systematically attack his arguments deprives us as liberals from the chance to really gain a meaningful understanding of what happened in Ohio, and thus prevents us from having a compelling and morally superior argument to carry with us into the next election.

I for one do not want to be waving the banner of Exit Polling if it is proven to be fault ridden, as it will dilute the veracity of the claim of corrupt election officials’ implementing laws that disenfranchise other liberal voters.

Disagree with him all you like, but to dismiss Manjoo (or Kennedy as Manjoo does) is to imperil our chance to attack from a position of strength in 2006 the process by which we elect our next congress.

It's still impossible to fathom why Salon has given so much space to Manjoo. Every one of his pieces stinks to high heaven with denial and skewed conclusions. Is Salon - like much of the rest of the country - simply afraid to admit to themselves that democracy in the US has died? Manjoo sure is. After all, if it is dead, what now? Scary. Only by facing the facts can anything positive come out of it. How many more elections do the Republicans have to steal before people get a clue?

A shitty reporter and a recently-gone-bananas son of a real man.

WTF? Who cares who "wins"? All this article and all its bastard children has done is help the Far Right by making us appear even more stupid...which will provide a great smokescreen for the next go-round of election shenanigans.

Thanks, Salon. Thanks a whole fucking lot.

For nothing.

And now, Cary Tennis tackles the problems of an adult who picks boogers.

It's been Manjoo's special talent since the first article I read here.

But it's wrong-headed to try to prove that Kerry won Ohio. Maybe he did. Maybe not. But the thuggery of the new, GOP election system is apparent, no matter who won.

The thing about the modern, GOP-style vote-rigging is that it's massive and silent. In Daley's Chicago, or Tweed's New York, the corruption was right out there. You just had to count the number of liquor bottles given, the jobs handed out, the names on the tombstones and so on. It was perfectly obvious. Stay in a neighborhood tavern for an election week and you could hear all about it. They were in the business of vote amplification, padding the rolls, bribing voters. They weren't primarily about Republican vote suppression, they manufactured votes on the other side.

The GOP Boss Tweed era we are now in has its own techniques. The goal is vote suppression. Go to a GOP stronghold, and everything is fine. There's nobody handing out liquor, or jobs. The high school gyms are clean, the crowds small, and all's right with the world. But in the Democratic strongholds, the prior suppression has taken place before voting day. People arrive to find they've broken some new law that was passed by the GOP legislature. Oh, you weren't told? Sorry. Yes, you should have been notified, that's in the law, but there must have been some mixup. No, we don't have the provisional ballots. Sorry. What's that? The lineup is around the block? Well, there must have been a mistake with the voting machines. No, the station isn't where it's been for the last 20 years.

You don't have to prove that this or that statistical crime took place, but that efforts to commit this crime are all around. Those new ID laws are just to decrease fraud, you see? People don't have the cards? Well, the legislature did put a $25 price tag on the new cards, and you have to establish who you are first. But that's just to stop all that ballot-stuffing that Democrats used to do 50 years ago.

So, the question of whether Kerry won or lost Ohio is probably one of those questions we'll never really know, but it's necessary we see the GOP pattern, and see what a pervasive effort it is, with the goal of tilting election results completely unfairly. It's also important that we have some kind of solidarity here. I know, old world.

What really browns me off about Manjoo's attitude is that he is what I'd call a "New Republic" Democrat, that is, a centrist snob who, when you look around during a fight, is over at the soda fountain having a coke when there are fists flying. He'll never take my back.

Bob Fitrakis (from freepress.org), talking to Thom Hartmann yesterday, mentioned that since last February Bobby Kennedy and his fact-checkers have had dozens of email exchanges with freepress.org, in an effort to get the story right.

Whereas Farhad Manjoo turned out his piece in 24 hours. That in itself tells you a lot.

For reliable reporting on this issue, check out freepress.org, especially this interesting rebuttal by a statistician to Manjoo's article:

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/1997