One of the hallmarks of the Bush administration is that they make various claims and belittle people who don't swallow the claims hook, line and sinker. After awhile, when the claims turn out to be as valid as WMDs in Iraq, the administration changes the story to a new line, ignoring the old, leaving only historians and opponents to figure out the truth.
The latest news out of Ohio that that rather than destroying the ballots from the 2004 Presidential election as soon as they can following the 22 month waiting period, J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Ohio secretary of state, has decided to wait.
The New York Times said that "critics, including an independent candidate for governor and a team of statisticians and lawyers, say preliminary results from their ballot inspections show signs of more widespread irregularities than previously known."
Those inspecting the ballots aren't trying to say that Kerry should be President, although one has to wonder if that was required. The Times reported that the investigation has not inspected all 5.6 million ballots in the election because the critics were not given access to them until January. That followed an agreement by the League of Women Voters, a plaintiff in another election suit against the state, that it was not contesting the 2004 results.
However, after eight months inspecting 35,000 ballots from 75 rural and urban precincts, the critics say that they have found many with signs of tampering and that in some precincts the number of voters differs significantly from the certified results.
Gee, right on time. One would hardly be surprised to eventually find out that John Kerry did win Ohio, and therefore should have been President. Is it ironic that the current president talks long and hard about developing democracies in the middle east yet his team has harmed democracy more in the United States than most people ever will.
Democratic Party representatives said that the the investigations haven't found anything new, although one has to wonder if they also don't want the truth uncovered as it would show that the election should have been contested.
The Kerry Edwards team pledged to support the idea of every vote would count and every vote would be counted but it appears they may have gotten rolled by Rove Inc. Washington Governor Christine Gregoire figured that out and is the reason she is governor
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Conservatives: Faked Photos Bad, Words OK
After reading columns by outraged conservative columnists about the Reuters photograph that was altered one has to believe that conservatives are lucky that the media and public have such short attention spans.
When the enhanced photo was discovered, conservatives went after Reuters. However, to its credit, Reuters ended it's relationship with the photographer, pulled all of his photos to look for other potenital problems, and tightened editing procedures for photographs from the conflict and apologized for the case.
That's a lot more than you can say about many conservative bloggers like Michelle Malkin who had no qualms of using manipulated quotes by Democrats yet screamed about the altered photos. Perhaps she believes what's the big deal over a little faked smoke, sorry, faked words?
Compare conservatives' reaction to the manipulated photo and then look at how they reacted the manipulated Al Gore comments regarding the Internet. Yes, the famous alleged comment that Gore "invented" the Internet. Using that term is about as honest as using the doctored photo, and even worse today since the term has been discredited.
The "quote" came from an interview on CNN where Gore said During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. As Snopes.com pointed out in discrediting the inventing claim, if President Eisenhower had said he had created the interstate highway system, it's doubtful he would have been ridiculed.
Instead, despite defenses from Vinton Cerf, called by some as a founding father of the Internet, and Republican Newt Gingrich (Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet) Eric Boehlert found that during the 2000 election and counted more than 4,800 television, newspaper and magazine mentions during the campaign of Gore supposedly claiming to have invented the Internet.
What conservatives knew is that the media is lazy and would accept the faked term "invented" and so they could easily continue to use it in the future. So the next time you read the words "invented the internet" or "earthtones" (a whole nother story) think about the double standards about why it's wrong to fake photos but ok to fake words.
When the enhanced photo was discovered, conservatives went after Reuters. However, to its credit, Reuters ended it's relationship with the photographer, pulled all of his photos to look for other potenital problems, and tightened editing procedures for photographs from the conflict and apologized for the case.
That's a lot more than you can say about many conservative bloggers like Michelle Malkin who had no qualms of using manipulated quotes by Democrats yet screamed about the altered photos. Perhaps she believes what's the big deal over a little faked smoke, sorry, faked words?
Compare conservatives' reaction to the manipulated photo and then look at how they reacted the manipulated Al Gore comments regarding the Internet. Yes, the famous alleged comment that Gore "invented" the Internet. Using that term is about as honest as using the doctored photo, and even worse today since the term has been discredited.
The "quote" came from an interview on CNN where Gore said During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. As Snopes.com pointed out in discrediting the inventing claim, if President Eisenhower had said he had created the interstate highway system, it's doubtful he would have been ridiculed.
Instead, despite defenses from Vinton Cerf, called by some as a founding father of the Internet, and Republican Newt Gingrich (Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet) Eric Boehlert found that during the 2000 election and counted more than 4,800 television, newspaper and magazine mentions during the campaign of Gore supposedly claiming to have invented the Internet.
What conservatives knew is that the media is lazy and would accept the faked term "invented" and so they could easily continue to use it in the future. So the next time you read the words "invented the internet" or "earthtones" (a whole nother story) think about the double standards about why it's wrong to fake photos but ok to fake words.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
The GOP's Favorite "Democrat" Goes Down
The "Blinders for Bush" crowd are in full-scale denial this week with the primary election in Connecticut and win by Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman.
To the "Blinders" crowd, the election was solely about the Iraq War, not about anger about the complete utter disaster George Bush has been as president and Sen. Lieberman's role as a Bush enabler.
Martin Peretz, editor in chief of the New Republic, writing in the Wall Street Journal, says of Lamont "he does have one issue, and it is Iraq."
George Bush, why he's not an issue and in fact in the 1,400 word plus article it is 1,300 words in before Peretz bothers to mention Bush, and then only in passing.
To the true believers, Bush can do no wrong and he's not the reason people are upset enough to try to vote a senator out of office. In reality, more than the 49 percent who voted against Bush in 2004 or 51 percent in 2000 are upset at what's been going on.
As Dan Froomkin pointed out, according to the latest Washington Post poll, a near-majority of Americans -- 46 percent -- strongly disapprove of the job Bush is doing. That's strongly. Another 12 percent somewhat disapprove.
So nearly 60% are upset and so the only way people could take it out on Bush was to vote against Lieberman, GOP's Favorite Democrat. Now, as Lieberman said he would, and just as Bush did in 2000, Lieberman will disregard the will of the people .
Perhaps if Lieberman had been a true Democrat and fought Dick Cheney in 2000, today he would be Vice President and thinking of running for President in 2008 rather than a losing in a primary.
To the "Blinders" crowd, the election was solely about the Iraq War, not about anger about the complete utter disaster George Bush has been as president and Sen. Lieberman's role as a Bush enabler.
Martin Peretz, editor in chief of the New Republic, writing in the Wall Street Journal, says of Lamont "he does have one issue, and it is Iraq."
George Bush, why he's not an issue and in fact in the 1,400 word plus article it is 1,300 words in before Peretz bothers to mention Bush, and then only in passing.
To the true believers, Bush can do no wrong and he's not the reason people are upset enough to try to vote a senator out of office. In reality, more than the 49 percent who voted against Bush in 2004 or 51 percent in 2000 are upset at what's been going on.
As Dan Froomkin pointed out, according to the latest Washington Post poll, a near-majority of Americans -- 46 percent -- strongly disapprove of the job Bush is doing. That's strongly. Another 12 percent somewhat disapprove.
So nearly 60% are upset and so the only way people could take it out on Bush was to vote against Lieberman, GOP's Favorite Democrat. Now, as Lieberman said he would, and just as Bush did in 2000, Lieberman will disregard the will of the people .
Perhaps if Lieberman had been a true Democrat and fought Dick Cheney in 2000, today he would be Vice President and thinking of running for President in 2008 rather than a losing in a primary.
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