Oct 19, 2008
John McCain's statement in the debate that ACORN and the liberals
are "on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in
voter history ... maybe destroying the fabric of democracy" is probably
the most overwrought, ridiculous statement by a major-party nominee in
living memory.
If you make a charge that serious, you better have something to back it up. McCain has nothing. Nada zero zilch.
There is no evidence of any attempt to rig or steal this election.
Just think about the scale of the effort it would take to do what
McCain describes.
On a statewide level, you would need an army of thousands of
co-conspirators willing and able to vote repeatedly and illegally just
to have any hope whatsoever of altering the outcome, and according to
the GOP fantasy, those thousands consist of homeless drunks and drunk
addicts.
Yet out of this alleged conspiracy of thousands in which lowlife
drunks and dopers play a large part, the GOP and its allies in the
Justice Department and other governnment agencies can't find a single
participant willing to admit to the conspiracy and cough up the truth?
To rational people, that would suggest that no such conspiracy exists. But rationality has nothing to do with it.
There's something in the psyche of the GOP base that needs to
believe they are victims of some ill-defined but clearly treacherous
group plotting against them and the country. How else can they explain
the fact that they're losing? It can't be because they have proved
themselves incompetent at governance, or that they have lost touch with
the reality of life in 21st century America. There has to be some other
reason, and if there isn't they'll invent one.
In the 2006 cycle, that need was fulfilled by Moveon. org. The
rightwing blogs and punditocracy couldn't utter a paragraph without
weaving Moveon into their narrative somehow. It was never quite clear
how Moveon could possibly do all the nefarious things it was alleged to
be doing, but that uncertainty made the right-wing fantasy all the more
alluring.
This year, Moveon still exists - it's still doing what it was doing
before, yet the group is rarely if even mentioned. That's because ACORN
has now been cast to replace it in the role of designated villain.
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously against Ohio
Republicans in their effort to try to challenge 200,000 voters. Two
hundred thousand!! Republican officials fear the verdict of the
American people. They fear the wrath of those Americans drawn into
political participation by anger at the direction that the GOP has
tried to take their country. And they are trying desperately,
frantically, to try to prevent that verdict from being delivered.
Seventeen days to election day.
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John McCain's statement in the debate that ACORN and the liberals
are "on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in
voter history ... maybe destroying the fabric of democracy" is probably
the most overwrought, ridiculous statement by a major-party nominee in
living memory.
If you make a charge that serious, you better have something to back it up. McCain has nothing. Nada zero zilch.
There is no evidence of any attempt to rig or steal this election.
Just think about the scale of the effort it would take to do what
McCain describes.
On a statewide level, you would need an army of thousands of
co-conspirators willing and able to vote repeatedly and illegally just
to have any hope whatsoever of altering the outcome, and according to
the GOP fantasy, those thousands consist of homeless drunks and drunk
addicts.
Yet out of this alleged conspiracy of thousands in which lowlife
drunks and dopers play a large part, the GOP and its allies in the
Justice Department and other governnment agencies can't find a single
participant willing to admit to the conspiracy and cough up the truth?
To rational people, that would suggest that no such conspiracy exists. But rationality has nothing to do with it.
There's something in the psyche of the GOP base that needs to
believe they are victims of some ill-defined but clearly treacherous
group plotting against them and the country. How else can they explain
the fact that they're losing? It can't be because they have proved
themselves incompetent at governance, or that they have lost touch with
the reality of life in 21st century America. There has to be some other
reason, and if there isn't they'll invent one.
In the 2006 cycle, that need was fulfilled by Moveon. org. The
rightwing blogs and punditocracy couldn't utter a paragraph without
weaving Moveon into their narrative somehow. It was never quite clear
how Moveon could possibly do all the nefarious things it was alleged to
be doing, but that uncertainty made the right-wing fantasy all the more
alluring.
This year, Moveon still exists - it's still doing what it was doing
before, yet the group is rarely if even mentioned. That's because ACORN
has now been cast to replace it in the role of designated villain.
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously against Ohio
Republicans in their effort to try to challenge 200,000 voters. Two
hundred thousand!! Republican officials fear the verdict of the
American people. They fear the wrath of those Americans drawn into
political participation by anger at the direction that the GOP has
tried to take their country. And they are trying desperately,
frantically, to try to prevent that verdict from being delivered.
Seventeen days to election day.
John McCain's statement in the debate that ACORN and the liberals
are "on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in
voter history ... maybe destroying the fabric of democracy" is probably
the most overwrought, ridiculous statement by a major-party nominee in
living memory.
If you make a charge that serious, you better have something to back it up. McCain has nothing. Nada zero zilch.
There is no evidence of any attempt to rig or steal this election.
Just think about the scale of the effort it would take to do what
McCain describes.
On a statewide level, you would need an army of thousands of
co-conspirators willing and able to vote repeatedly and illegally just
to have any hope whatsoever of altering the outcome, and according to
the GOP fantasy, those thousands consist of homeless drunks and drunk
addicts.
Yet out of this alleged conspiracy of thousands in which lowlife
drunks and dopers play a large part, the GOP and its allies in the
Justice Department and other governnment agencies can't find a single
participant willing to admit to the conspiracy and cough up the truth?
To rational people, that would suggest that no such conspiracy exists. But rationality has nothing to do with it.
There's something in the psyche of the GOP base that needs to
believe they are victims of some ill-defined but clearly treacherous
group plotting against them and the country. How else can they explain
the fact that they're losing? It can't be because they have proved
themselves incompetent at governance, or that they have lost touch with
the reality of life in 21st century America. There has to be some other
reason, and if there isn't they'll invent one.
In the 2006 cycle, that need was fulfilled by Moveon. org. The
rightwing blogs and punditocracy couldn't utter a paragraph without
weaving Moveon into their narrative somehow. It was never quite clear
how Moveon could possibly do all the nefarious things it was alleged to
be doing, but that uncertainty made the right-wing fantasy all the more
alluring.
This year, Moveon still exists - it's still doing what it was doing
before, yet the group is rarely if even mentioned. That's because ACORN
has now been cast to replace it in the role of designated villain.
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously against Ohio
Republicans in their effort to try to challenge 200,000 voters. Two
hundred thousand!! Republican officials fear the verdict of the
American people. They fear the wrath of those Americans drawn into
political participation by anger at the direction that the GOP has
tried to take their country. And they are trying desperately,
frantically, to try to prevent that verdict from being delivered.
Seventeen days to election day.
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