Posted on 11/30/2004 10:24:25 AM PST by Chi-townChief
Real conspiracy theorists never admit they're wrong. No matter how many facts and bits of logic you throw at them, they'll always say, "That's all well and good, but you haven't proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm wrong. Why can't you produce concrete evidence that the Loch Ness Monster doesn't exist?"
Well, because it's a little tough to prove a negative.
If Lee Harvey Oswald materialized from the beyond, knocked on the door of the JFK Assassination Conspiracy Headquarters and said, "I want you to know that I acted alone," the typical JFK conspiracy theorist would say: "Thank you for proving my point, oh spirit of Lee Harvey. See that, everyone? Obviously this Oswald ghost is being manipulated by the ghosts of J. Edgar Hoover, Sam Giancana and Lyndon B. Johnson. He's afraid to come right out and speak the truth, but he was sending a secret message to me by winking in Morse code. The man is just a ghostly patsy!"
To this day, there are people who believe the moon landings were faked, Elvis is alive and in hiding, Vince Foster was murdered and the Pentagon was not struck by a plane on 9/11.
The medical term for such a person is "bonehead," pronounced, "bonehead."
Bush only THINKS he won
I don't believe the 2004 election conspiracy theorists are dumb or delusional -- but I do think their passion is misguided.
It's been a month since the election, but every day my e-mailbox continues to fill up with messages from anti-GOPers.
"Is there any reason why voting irregularities are not being reported on, only 3 weeks after the election? Please let me know if you support democracy ..."
"The mainstream media continues its blackout of coverage regarding voting irregularities in Florida and Ohio ..."
"It is possible John Kerry could be sworn in as POTUS. ... To beat election fraud, the press (that is YOU) have to report on it ..."
"An open letter to the media: Please do your job and report on the vote fraud that occurred in Ohio and Florida ..."
I share only the first few lines of these e-mails with you, because to reproduce them in full would be to fill up the entire newspaper. (A woman from Ohio recently sent out a conspiracy theory e-mail that ran more than 3,000 words. I think it's safe to say that with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points, approximately zero percent of recipients actually made it to the end of the essay.)
Often the e-mails provide links to Web sites and blogs claiming that John Kerry might have won Ohio and Florida.
What, no Texas?
Like most conspiracy theories, the allegations of massive election-changing voter fraud and computer error in the election contain a sprinkling of facts, erroneous interpretations of statistics, paranoid speculation passed off as scientific analysis, and loads of assertions that are just wrong.
Here's a classic example.
In Florida, some two dozen counties that went to Bush are dominated by registered Democrats. Consider Lafayette County, Fla., where more than 80 percent of residents are registered Democrats -- but 74 percent of the vote went to Bush. In Holmes County, Fla., almost 75 percent of registered voters are Democrats, but Bush beat Kerry by a 6-1 margin.
How can this be?
In the counties in question, most of the registered Democrats have been voting Republican in national elections for decades. They just haven't officially switched party affiliations. Bush won those same counties by large margins over Gore in 2000.
All right, then how about the suburb of Columbus, Ohio, where Bush was reported to have won 4,258 to 260, even though only 638 ballots were actually cast? And what about the 76,000 punch cards in Ohio where no vote for president was recorded?
In the first case, the overcount for Bush was the result of an apparent computer glitch. It was quickly corrected, and the "extra" votes were not in the final tally.
As for the phantom punch cards: some people actually didn't vote for president, but voted in other races. You're allowed to do that, you know. Others mistakenly voted for both candidates, negating their ballot.
And how do we know those double-dippers didn't really intend to vote for Bush?
For every theory out there, I could provide debunking ammo, or I could direct you to debunking stories from the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe and other news organizations. But it wouldn't sway the true conspiracy theorist. He would counter with a debunker-debunking blog, or claim the debunking articles prove there's a "media blackout" on voter irregularity stories.
Funny though. I thought we were the "elite liberal media," acting in concert. If we're the elite liberal media, why are we conspiring with the White House to ensure George Bush's fraudulent re-election?
I hate it when conspiracy theories collide like that.
"Ebert & Roeper" airs at 10:35 p.m. Saturday and 10:30 a.m. Sunday on WLS-Channel 7.
Richard Roeper is the first liberal to write who's not a victim of Moore's Disease. We can be thankful the rest of the Left hasn't caught on yet.
Conspiracy theorists are part of the conspiracy. There is a conspiracy to make us believe there is a conspiracy, and by the clumsiness of the conspiracy theory conspiracy to thereby discredit the conspiracy so we do not believe there is a conspiracy.
There are still plenty of unanswered questions about Vince...
"To this day, there are people who believe...Vince Foster was murdered"
Well, DUH! Because he was murdered!!!
And this in turn proves that there is, indeed, a conspiracy.........;^)
These people see a conspiracy ONLY because Kerry didn't win.
right!
Exactly what is the difference between the truth and the accepted facts?
Go Bucs!
You're one of Them, aren't you?
--slide guitar riff while standing on your table kicking your drinks
You are obviously TOGETHER.
The drunken rabble who make up DU and Michael Moore's fan base were amusing to the Democrats who wanted agitators to denounce Bush every day.
Now that they are sufficiently out of power (and increase in GOP seats in the House and Senate), they realize it only hurts their party more at this point.
Even Michael Moore turned in a "disappointing" performance on the Tonight Show according to the quotes in DU Funnies today.
The left considers the mainstream media to be "biased to the right" because they are owned by big corporations (no joke). They prefer the business model of a media source such as Pravda under the Soviet Union. So much better when the State owns the media (like much around the world).
Never adequately explained that mysterious bulge in his back.
Goebbels would be proud of this lying liar who tried to manipulate the masses.
Never fully explained his National Guard Service, and stood mute as Republicans produced factually challenged ads attacking John Kerry's war heroism.
The Big Lie. Tell it often enough and it becomes the truth.
F. Democrats. Rats lie.
It appears that Dubya "got to" Roeper.
LOL
No, he wasn't murdered. He drove to Ft. Marcy park with a hole in his head and traveled 50 yards without leaving any footprints to where he fell over and shot himself again with a pistol no one has been able to trace while leaving no powder burns. We had a murder like that in Nashville a long time ago where a guy shot himself in the back several times.
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