re: the Mark Crispin Miller flap. Salon weighs in

[whometense]

Review of Miller's book by Farhad Manjoo

Nov. 14, 2005 | On Nov. 4, Mark Crispin Miller, the New York University media studies professor and longtime Bush critic, appeared on the lefty radio show "Democracy Now!" to promote his new book, "Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them)." As part of an on-air debate with the investigative reporter Mark Hertsgaard, who recently criticized Miller's book in Mother Jones magazine, Miller let slip a dramatic piece of news about last year's Democratic nominee for the presidency. "On Friday, this last Friday night, I arranged to meet Senator Kerry at a fundraiser to give him a copy of my book," Miller said. "He told me he now thinks the election was stolen."

Now, this was big news. If what Miller said about Kerry was right, it would have signaled a momentous shift in thinking for the senator. For a year now, partisans on the left who say that Bush stole last year's presidential race have had a hard time making their claim stick precisely because Kerry, the man they allege was the main victim of the fraud, had so quickly conceded the election and so thoroughly ignored any suggestion that it had been rigged. But if Kerry now thought that these people were right -- if Kerry now believed Bush didn't actually win the race -- well, that would change everything. Suddenly the year-long online barrage of half-baked theories and misreported election data that some people say proves a massive, successful Republican conspiracy to install Bush in the White House would have found a very prominent, aggrieved backer, someone to finally make the case to the world that Americans had been cheated of their rightful president.

Unfortunately for the partisans, Miller's Kerry blockbuster quickly fizzled. "I know Mr. Miller is trying to sell his book and he feels passionately about his thesis, but his recent statements about his conversation with Senator Kerry are simply not true," Jenny Backus, a Kerry spokeswoman, told Raw Story shortly after the "Democracy Now!" broadcast. "The only thing true about his recollection of the conversation is that he gave Senator Kerry a copy of his book."

Of course, I don't know what transpired between the professor and the senator, but Miller's shaky scoop is all too typical of much of the reporting in his book, in which Miller claims to prove that "hundreds, even thousands" of people on the right, spread across the country, conspired to steal the 2004 presidential election (and many others besides).

I say that Miller claims to prove this because that's pretty much all he does. In his introduction, Miller promises to prove that Republicans rigged the race, and then at some point in the middle of the book he begins talking like he already has, and the reader is left to leaf through the volume in a daze, wondering if perhaps some kind of typesetting or bookbinding error caused the explosive section of Miller's tome to be left out of this one copy. But not so; my book is intact, and though I searched the contents, the index and the voluminous endnotes, I found no proof of Miller's theory. Like his claim that Kerry now believes he was robbed, Miller's many suggestions of fraud dissolve under close scrutiny. By the end, the only fraud you're sure of is the one perpetrated upon you, the reader, into bearing with this book. <...>

[wisteria]

1. Good to have Kerry vindicated. I understand that Salon is very fair! n/t

[MH1]

2. Yikes. That'll go over well in GD.

not.

:popcorn:

(I've also found Salon to be pretty fair. This sounds about right.)

[karynnj]

3. I don't know what they'll like less

- the summary of how "well" the book proves what it says it does
(or)
- that he clearly believes Kerry over Miller

This really shows how much a non-story those awful few days really were.

[JI7]

4. just the fact that it came down to

what Miller claims Kerry said rather than Miller laying out his case for a stolen election says it all.

[Noisy Democrat]

5. Has anyone even posted it to GD?

Or should one of us do the honors?

[JI7]

6. probably not

but i'm sure the responses will mostly be negative .

[kerrygoddess]

7. Good piece from Salon!

Ron just posted it on Dem Daily. I noticed on page 2 I think that Farhad Manjoo said the GAO Report MCM refers to is the January GAO Report I brought up in my piece about MCM's claim. Glad to see that.

“You can see from Miller’s endnotes that many of his Ohio allegations come from a single source, a report called “Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio,” which was published in January by the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee under the direction of Michigan Rep. John Conyers. (A PDF version of the report is available here.) The Conyers report is in turn also largely inspired by a single source — the Free Press, a muckraking lefty Web site based in Columbus, whose editor Bob Fitrakis reported on a series of alleged electoral mishaps in the aftermath of last year’s race.”

[Noisy Democrat]

8. Wanna venture into GD and post too?

We proud members of the Fighting Kerry Third can provide backup.

[ray of light]

10. Actually, I met Bob Fritakis

And he comes across as very credible.

He also was a lawyer involved directly in the Ohio recount.

Though his website maybe called, "muckraking or lefty" that may not necessarily be a bad thing to be. Muckraking was the original term used to describe the people who dig up the facts to expose the truth to others. And left is RIGHT and is actually a pretty good thing to be. All of us here are 'lefties' and thank god not righties.

However, one specific aspect of the quote to worry about is "largely inspired by a single source..." It's always better to have more than one source, but I would disagree with the statement that Conyers report used mainly the Free Press. Did this author forget about the 100's of people who gave Conyers direct testimony last year?

While it's nice how Salon's author described this book particularly, I am sorry but I actually take issue with the degradation in that one paragraph KerryGoddess sighted.

[TayTay]

13. I agree. We don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater

There were and are serious problems with the election system. These problems need to be fixed. It is unconscionable that such problems overwhelmingly affected the African-American community. That outrage must be corrected. It is not negotiable.

I hated the whole idea that we had a meltdown over the difference between fraud and stolen. (Typical lefty overkill. There are some people who will believe that unless someone agrees with them 100%, they are illegitimate and toadies to the establishment. This is ridiculous and ends up cheapening the reform movement.)

I personally believe that Sen. Kerry conceeded because he didn't think he had the votes. The national margin of 3 million votes was insurmountable. If Kerry had taken office with a technicality in Ohio, it would have been awful. (Had he legitimately won Ohio, well, that would still have been difficult if he didn't have a national margin.) It is what it is and we need to move on and correct what we can.

[ray of light]

14. And a few of the bigger issues than last weekend's meltdown are:

1. Registrations and roll purges.
2. Switching polling stations thus making regular voters have to fill out provisionals that may or may not have been counted.
3. Supression and intimidation of course!
4. and the sham and illegal activities related to the recount.

[karynnj]

15. Great list - and MCM and others run the risk of jeopordizing

these issues which are real and important and FIXABLE for the future problems by their over-hyped, over sold analyses.

I'm sure there is nothing the right would like better than to use the excesses to dispute the entire issue.

[_dynamicdems]

9. Ah, this is good.

But still...it is annoying that anyone doubted Senator Kerry in the first place.

Who to believe? A Senator with 20 years experience in Congress who was selected as their choice by millions of voters in 2004 or a guy trying to sell a book? A no brainer if you ask me.

[Mass]

11. Link to the full article

Worth the read (use the free subscription for a day).

To make it clear, what the author reproaches to Miller and others is not to think the election was rigged, but to offer few proofs that are rock solid and could go in front of a tribunal, when it comes to BBV.

http://www.salon.com/books/review/2005/11/14/miller/index.html

End of the article:

Miller is right. The electoral system is not a criminal case, and you don't have to prove that Bush stole the election beyond a shadow of a doubt in order to eradicate all doubts you may have about the race. And he's right, too, that we should have had a serious investigation into the flaws in the last election, and that those flaws -- and the flaws we see every year -- should prompt politicians to fix the entire electoral system before the next big race.

But "Fooled Again" is not that serious investigation. It's nowhere close. Miller writes that "it is the purpose of this book to serve American democracy by pointing out the truth about the last election, for that truth alone, and not the maunderings of the punditocracy, will set us free." But this is where Miller fails his audience. In his reliance on a lower measure of proof, something less than "beyond a shadow of a doubt," Miller strays far, too far, from the truth. And if we're not willing to look at the election honestly, we won't be set free anytime soon.

[whometense]

12. Thanks for the link.

I thought I'd put it up, but I messed it up! That'll teach me to post so late at night.