Tristero has the latest on Kennedy's response to Manjoo (and Manjoo's response to Kennedy's response):
Bottom line: I'll anger a lot of you, but based on the information in Kennedy's first article, Manjoo's response and this new article, I believe it is a seriously open question as to what actually happened in Ohio in 2004. Without further, extensive investigation honest people will disagree on whether it was stolen or whether Bush would have won anyway. If the latter, it seems it would have been a squeaker.I really hope that doesn't anger many because it's dead on. As berlin niebuhr has so eloquently pointed out, Kennedy's case was by no means a slam dunk. But he raised so many different issues that anybody should be able to conclude that a further investigation is needed. If this were a grand jury investigation, there would be enough evidence for an indictment even if we don't know if there's enough evidence for a conviction yet.
What is beyond dispute either by Kennedy or Manjoo are two points. First, what happened in Ohio (if not elsewhere) stinks to high heaven. Agreed. Second, if America is still a democracy, then election form is what the president of the United States should be using his bully pulpit to advocate, not ways to use the Constitution to empower gay bashing. Agreed.Indeed. And since we can all agree on that, it's time to heed berlin niebuhr's advice...
Let's look at it from this perspective. No one will ever be proven right or wrong, so why not use it to our advantage? Just think what the Repubs would be doing if the shoe were on the other foot here. O'Really???, Osama bin Limbaugh, the man known as Coulter. The constant screaming into the Congressional Record. Well, actually we don't have to imagine it. It's called the 2000 Florida recount, another 100% undecidable (word?) controversy. We know how they turned that whole thing into a strong political issue for themselves, so what has ever been the harm in doing the same with the 2004 results?
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