I was a very active contributor on the NOW Politics and Economy bulletin board following the 2004 election. I was totally devastated by the election outcome and just couldnt' swallow that US citizens had truly re-elected GW, our p-resident.
The only explanation that made sense to me was that they indeed HADN'T elected him...that the election had been stolen. I had been reading all the news out of Ohio and New Mexico and Florida and became increasingly convinced that I was correct.
Then the next day Kerry conceded and I was flabbergasted! How COULD he? How could he cave so badly? (Should there be a link between candidacy and vet status? Should we expect more from a vet?)
Well anyway, I began posting everything I could find about the election and it's questionable outcome on the NOW boards (and to this day have a bit of a reputation there as the person who would not let the issue die. I still post whenever I find anything about the subject.) I think that I probably have the status of a tinfoil hat conspiracist with some of my right of center 'friends,' but I consider myself a thoughtful, well-read, rational contributor!!
Well, recently (a week or so ago) the Rollingstone Magazine published an article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. documenting how even HE thought the Ohio election had been stolen! He and we expected that his statement/article would catapult the subject once again into the national consciousness. But NO, it did not. (Why would we think that...how foolish of us! Media strategy is to ignore bad news til it goes away and they have been remarkably successful!) I think the only outlet that picked up on it was 'Salon's' online magazine and they tried to shoot holes in his article. He wrote a very cogent rebuttal!
Now it seems that the NYT's has commented on the 2004 election in the wake of some renewed interest. You'll find the comment on Salon at http://www.salon.com/.... It's VERY interesting! Apparently, Bob Herbert doesn't discount Kennedy's view. The Salon piece's closing sentence says, "No one has been able to prove that the election in Ohio was hijacked," Herbert writes. "But whenever it is closely scrutinized, the range of problems and dirty tricks that come to light is shocking. What's not shocking, of course, is that every glitch and every foul-up in Ohio, every arbitrary new rule and regulation, somehow favored Mr. Bush."
P-resident Bush, indeed!!