Posted on 01/22/2005 2:33:47 PM PST by KidGlock
Leonard Pitts: Memo to John Kerry: The election is over, you lost, now move on
Leonard Pitts Jr.
I don't want to hear anything else about Ohio.
My apologies to the Buckeye State, but I've had it up to here with overheated Internet postings purporting to prove that massive fraud swung the vote in the state that decided the election of 2004.
If you haven't seen them, well . . . I'm sorry your hard drive crashed and I hope it's fixed real soon. The rest of us have been unable to escape the nonstop conspiracy theorizing that began about 30 seconds after John Kerry conceded the election.
I thought it had petered out, but this week, the former candidate himself stoked the fire, making unusually sharp accusations of GOP malfeasance during a Martin Luther King Day breakfast in Boston.
Voting machines, said Kerry, were ''distributed in uneven ways,'' and voters in Democratic precincts had to wait up to 11 hours to exercise the franchise while Republicans breezed on through. What he didn't say - what I have yet to hear any credible expert say - is that these irregularities made any material difference to the bottom line.
That being the case, why are we having this discussion?
I don't mean by that question to trivialize the issue of election fraud. In a nation that required a Voting Rights Act to ensure all of its citizens equal access to the ballot box, few things are more worthy of serious concern.
Election fraud - whenever committed, by whomever and for whatever purpose - is a threat to our political system. If we the people lose confidence in the integrity of our elections, we lose pretty much everything.
And if I were convinced that was what moved Kerry to speak out, I'd happily support him. But it seems obvious to me after two months of conspiracy theories that what motivates Kerry and many other Democrats isn't concern over election irregularities in general, but concern over election irregularities that may have benefited the other party.
He's a politician, so maybe it's naive to expect anything else.
Still, the talk has become tiresome. In listening to party loyalists obsess over how the election was ''stolen,'' I'm reminded of something a former colleague, a white guy from the South, once wrote about the Civil War.
''For years after the war,'' he said, ''Southern partisans vainly refought the Civil War battles, particularly the crucial second day of Gettysburg, as if trying to get a different answer to a math problem.''
There is, it seems to me, some of that going on with regard to the election. It's as if Democrats are trapped by hindsight, doomed to crunch that math problem in desperation until the numbers add up to a more palatable sum.
Meanwhile, George W. Bush was inaugurated for his second term Thursday.
It's no secret that some of us regard that as a disaster of Brobdingnagian proportions. Fine. There is no legal or moral requirement that anyone be happy about it.
But at this late date we are required to accept it. And to accept this: Unlike in 2001, when he took the oath of office with an assist from the Supreme Court, Bush was not inaugurated this time with any taint of illegitimacy. The election was close, but not that close. George W. is the duly elected, second-term president of the United States.
That some are still working that math problem at this late date, trying to make the numbers add up differently even as Bush places his hand on the Bible, feels petty and small. Feels like sour grapes.
In these next years, we will be tested in ways we can scarcely imagine. Do the Democrats really have the luxury of time to spin conspiracy theories that won't change a thing?
If there is a smoking gun, let's see it. But until and unless there is, we have little to gain from complaints like Kerry's.
It's time to swallow the bitter pill and move on.
--- ABOUT THE WRITER Leonard Pitts Jr., winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a columnist for the Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla. 33132. Readers may write to him via e-mail at lp
Isn't it interesting that "Move-on.org" can't move on.
Reality is a ----- when you're a leftist.
Pitts is a "liberal," but sometimes he makes sense...now to read the article and see if I still think so.
The article makes me wonder if someone kidnapped Pitts and is using his body (and pen) to make liberals sound more sane.
I was just at the IMDB movie site and they have a banner ad that asks what type of President John Kerry will make. I never click on them teasers, but I couldn't resist.
bttt
You know, to me, all the talk about Democrats and minorities being prevented from voting (which, I believe, is what Kerry actually said) is nothing less than an attempt to havest votes by sowing hatred.
I find that inexcusable and I can only pray that the results of such a cynical plow will not be, to quote Pitts, "brobdingnagian."
Looks like I am a little more ticked than Pitts, but I still kind of like the guy.
"Election fraud - whenever committed, by whomever and for whatever purpose - is a threat to our political system."
Right on! Dems have been doing this for years, and have gotten really good at it.
As for the problems in Dem precincts, it had to be known from all the polls that many more people were going to be voting in this election, enough time to have gotten more machines to have on hand.
I agree with your comment, this isn't quite the Leonard Pitts I'm accustomed to reading.
Good admission by a Leftie, but he couldn't resist poking a stick at SCOTUS for stopping an election FROM being stolen.
Memo to Leonard Pitts: Slavery is over. Time to move on.
No! They need to stop wasting their time and start complaining about policy! They should be doing their best to gum up the works, charge the administration with diabolical intentions and demanding investigations every two days! No more dithering with election results.
Sometimes, the Baltimore Sun picks up Pitts' column. I suspect that they'll pass on this one.
I cannot vouch for the rest of the state, but in Hamilton County, the turnout numbers don't appear to be much higher than in 2000. Additionally, they even seem *lower* in some Dem areas.
On the other hand, turnout in Waren County, which went 70% for Bush, was through the roof. Warren County is growing very quickly. I work with several people who live in Warren County, and their wait at the polls was incredibly long, like five or six hours. My boss voted in a fire station, which left little room to wait, so most of the waiting was done outside. As you'll no doubt recall if you live around here, it was very cold and rainy that morning.
I've said it before and I will say it again: I will personally pay for John Kerry's first-class airfare to come to Warren County and publicly repeat his allegations about how they had no wait, while Democrats waited for ten hours in other places.
Pitts is on the right track here. If he had thought about it for a few more minutes he would have come to the inescapable conclusion that the Dems, (and the entire left,) are completely removed from reality.
But .. you have not heard word one about the grand fraud taking place in Washington state against a Republican .. have you.
No, he didn't.
And I'll enjoy watching your party self destruct
Leftists have two sets of rules. One for them, and one for us. We are supposed to forget the crimes of the Clintons - even as they keep popping up into the news years after Slick left office. But we are supposed to wallow in any GOP malfeasance, real or imagined, for years and years and year - and then try to apply it to other situations where it doesn't apply - such as trying to equate Florida in 2000 to Ohio in 2004 534 votes versus 119,000 - why let numbers get in the way?
Yes, and we should be grateful for the 20th amendment, which was added to the Constitution in 1933. Until then, inauguration day was March 4. If the Democrats had had another six weeks to play with in 2000/2001, they might have had time to steal Florida's electoral votes.
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