RFK Jr: Taking the Stolen Election Seriously

By Thom Hartmann, AlterNet. Posted June 7, 2006.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written a brilliant new article about the biggest political story in the history of the United States: An American politician illegitimately took the office of president by outright theft and fraud. Although such high crimes and misdemeanors have been rumored in previous elections, none in the history of the republic have been so thoroughly documented. George W. Bush is not the legitimate president of the United States.

Schoolchildren read (in the few remaining civics classes in America) about the multiple pollings and tense standoff that led to Thomas Jefferson's election as president in "the Revolution of 1800," because newspapers of the day looked into and reported on such things. But -- unless we speak out -- odds are that few will read about what happened in Ohio in 2004 in future history books, because modern newspaper editors are increasingly corporate appendages, and many of today's "reporters" worry more about currying favor with institutional power than investigating stories that may inconvenience or upset their "sources."

Kennedy's story -- "Was The 2004 Election Stolen?" -- broke on Thursday, June 1, 2006, when Rolling Stone magazine put it on their website and it was reprinted on other websites. It hit the newsstands soon thereafter. In the article, Kennedy lays out the details of exactly how the Republican Party, in several states but particularly in Ohio, engaged in a criminal conspiracy to both steal the 2004 election and to cover up the evidence of that theft.

The subtitle of the article lays out Kennedy's foundational premise: "Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House." And that's just the beginning of the story, which includes ballot-box stuffing, electronic voting machine manipulation, "caging" in defiance of a court order banning Republicans from the notorious practice, threats and intimidation of Democratic voters by imported Republican goon squads, and multiple illegal uses of the office of the Secretary of State to disenfranchise Democratic voters.

The Republican rebuttals/attacks have already begun, starting with a particularly tragic hit-piece in one of the higher-profile "online magazines" that claims to authoritatively quote so-called but unnamed "experts" who doubt Kennedy's sources, and takes a clip of Ohio law so out of context as to essentially reverse its meaning in support of the Republican talking points.

The day Kennedy's article came out, Republican callers began dialing into talk radio shows complaining about "massive Democrat (sic) voter fraud by registering illegal immigrants" (to quote a caller to my Air America Radio program on 6/2/06). Clearly the meme Republicans will put out if Kennedy's story gets traction in the mainstream media is that "election fraud is something both parties do," and they'll use that meme to push even harder for more Republican-helpful restrictions on voters who are old, urban, or poor enough not to have or easily acquire two forms of government-issued ID. We can't let them -- this is about real crimes, and the destruction of democracy in our republic.

Kennedy's article is an in-depth, on-the-ground report from Ohio about the 2004 election. In it, he acknowledges that he is building on the work of many who preceded him - this was a story not particularly difficult to uncover, even though the mainstream media has chosen to ignore it. Seminal investigations were done by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman of the Columbus, Ohio Free Press, and by Michigan Congressman John Conyers, who held hearings in Ohio that resulted in a summary report now available in book form titled What Went Wrong In Ohio (all referenced by Kennedy).

Just after the 2002 elections, I wrote an article for Common Dreams outing Senator Chuck Hagel's odd journey from voting machine peddler to the US Senate (being elected on his own machines). Six months later, in the summer of 2003, MoveOn.org commissioned me to write a round-up article about voting machine problems which they emailed to over 2 million members, and was published on AlterNet. In both articles (and others since), I was building on the work of Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org, Lynn Landes, and many others, just as Kennedy has done.

Thom Hartmann is an author and nationally syndicated daily talk show host. His newest book is 'We The People: A Call To Take Back America.'

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