Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote a long article about the fraudulent presidential election of 2004.
George "I'm The Decider" Bush has been quoted as saying his job would be easier if he were a dictator. After reading this, it's clear that he already is one.
After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004 — more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes.
Reader comments at following link:
Reader comment: Jim says:
I'm a longtime reader and big fan of Boingboing, but I wanted to point out that RFK Jr.'s story, or more accurately the Ohio voting issue, has some who would hardly be considered conservatives pointing out holes. Here's an NPR blog post about the subject:
"One last thing: There also was a session called, "Who Really Won the Election 2004?" This was an opportunity for the cyber-active bloggers who think the Ohio vote was somehow fraudulent to present their best case. They didn't. Their presentations were confusing, if not incoherent to this listener, and they all seemed to boil down to one complaint: namely, that the vote totals didn't match the exit polls. The problem with that argument is that if you can give good reasons why the exit polls were wrong in Ohio (and there are many), their entire complaint disappears."
Mother Jones also provides this:
"Yet it remains far from clear that Bush stole the election, and I say that as someone who has written that Bush did steal Florida and the White House in 2000 (and who—full disclosure—is friendly with skeptics Miller and Wasserman). First, some of the most far-reaching acts of potential disenfranchisement, such as the purging of voter rolls, were legal—which is why one lesson of Ohio 2004 is that voting systems throughout the nation need fundamental reform. Second, even if Kerry had won Ohio, the national vote went to Bush by 3 million votes. Ohio would have given Kerry the presidency by the same unholy route that Bush traveled in 2000 and that led so many Democrats to urge, rightly, the abolishment of the Electoral College. Third, the skeptics' position is weakened by the one-sidedness of their arguments and their know-it-all tone. They have a plausible case to make, but they act like it's a slam dunk and imply that anyone who doesn't agree with them is either stupid, bought, or on the other side—not the best way to win people over."
Reader comment: AB says
Dear Mark,
Another long time reader here.
The recent edit to the post Kennedy, 2004 Election article and Jim's
comments are completely irrelevant. Jim engages a host of logical
fallacies in his spurious attempt to refute the Kennedy article. It's
a bit of a tangle, but I'll give it a go:(1) Both were written before the article was released so they are not
addressing Kennedy's allegations, which are many and supported.(2) Jim implies that an NPR author must be a liberal and favorable to
Democrats because he works for NPR.(3) The NPR article is refuted by the Mother Jones article. To wit,
NPR: "they all seemed to boil down to one complaint: namely, that the
vote totals didn't match the exit polls." Versus, Mother Jones:
"First, some of the most far-reaching acts of potential
disenfranchisement, such as the purging of voter rolls, were legal…"
Exit poll irregularities and purging voter rolls are not "one
complaint."(4) Rather, there are numerous complaints presented in the Kennedy
article that are not addressed by either of Jim's sources.(5) The inability of the people at the conference to present a
coherent argument is unrelated to Kennedy and the Rolling Stone
article. Moreover, we have to take the NPR author's word that they
were incoherent. He fails to provide any description whatsoever.(6) "The problem with that argument is that if you can give good
reasons why the exit polls were wrong in Ohio (and there are many),
their entire complaint disappears." Unsupported allegation. Kennedy
has met his burden. The NPR author and Jim have not met theirs to
disprove it. Let's hear one reason why one of Kennedy's many arguments
"disappears."(7) The inability of the Mother Jones author to establish, to his
satisfaction, that the election in Ohio was stolen, has no bearing on
the work done by Kennedy. The inability of Da Vinci to creat a flying
machine doesn't mean the Wright Brothers didn't do it either.
