RFK Responds to Solon Article

It's been a busy week for the 2004 election analysts -- and it's only Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Rolling Stone placed "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?", Robert Kennedy Jr.'s meticulously researched article on the 2004 elections online.

Then, Farhad Manjoo published an article in Salon, "Was the 2004 Election Stolen? No", in which he claimed to have Â"thoroughly debunked"” the Kennedy article.

Then, Ron Baiman, one of the statisticians cited in Bobby Kennedy's Rolling Stone article chimed in with his own refutation of Manjoo's debunking of the Kennedy research.

Now, Bobby Kennedy is back, in Salon, with an extended, detailed, rebuttal of Manjoo's article. It is funny how many liberals are shying away from any suggestion that Kerry really won the 2004 elections. Many of them are willing taking up the Republican "tin-foil hats" talking points about any analysis of what went on in Ohio.

These are the same people who, for the most part, were convinced that Powell, Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld were all lying about WMDs and had hidden motives for getting us into Iraq -- well before the rest of the country finally came around to that view. But they are unwilling to entertain the notion that the same crew, willing to stand up in public and lie about what they knew and send thousands of our children to their deaths, were above participating, or condoning, secret actions to undermine the integrity of the elections that kept them in power? Huh?

It is astounding to me that so-called liberals are not only refusing to accept the possibility that something (many things) went wrong in Ohio (and elsewhere) which may have affected the election, but that they are so strident in their rejection of the discussion. This Daily Kos diary is typical of thexplanationtion of their mindset:

We need to concentrate on winning elections in the system as it currently stands, since we can not change the system at all unless we win elections using the current system.

In the religion of Democracy, it seems to me that the biggest sin is to have unreliable election results. I simply cannot comprehend why anyone would choose to ignore a story like this because it might hurt their chances to win the next election.

In his own debunking of the debunker, Bobby Kennedy tells us how Manjoo's professional reputation is staked on the validity of the Ohio results:

Manjoo has made a cottage industry for himself in attempting to debunk concerns about the validity of the 2004 election. Given that he has staked his professional reputation on the thesis that Bush beat Kerry fair and square, it's unsurprising that he should be eager to attack my piece. But it is a shame that his faith in the election results has blinded him to the point that he can dismiss the widespread and uncontested evidence of vote suppression as nothing more than a "hit parade" of irrelevant facts and figures. He also remains strangely silent on the transparently crooked recount process, which has kept this debate alive by preventing us from knowing the actual outcome of the vote in Ohio.

Kennedy's reputation probably would have been better served had he not published his article. From my point of view, it seems to me that what Kennedy did was brave and out of respect for Democracy. Manjoo's motivations seem more selfish and personal. But, go read it all yourself. And, if you like, I have spare tin-foil hats that I'd be happy to share.