Salon's Manjoo Defends Bush with Weak Arguments

[Shalom]

I sent the e-mail below the editor of Salon regarding the "Presidential Debate" between Greg Palast and Farhad Manjoo regarding whether Bush stole Ohio:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/11/16/palast/

Letter to Editor, Salon
RE:

In his debate with Greg Palast, Mr. Manjoo argues that even with a generous estimate of uncounted Kerry votes, that Bush still wins Ohio by 26,000 votes.

First of all, if this were indeed Bush's margin of victory, it would be less than 1/2 %, which would make one consider whether a state-wide recount would be necessary to decide who really won.

Secondly, Manjoo totally ignores the impact of voters who never made it to the polls due to Mr. Blackwell's actions: the chilling effect of allowing citizen "poll watchers", and the fact that inadequate facilites were provided in poor and minority neighborhoods. It is easy to contemplate that this could lose Mr. Kerry 100,000 votes across the state.

It is true that Palast cannot prove that Mr. Kerry won Ohio, and hence the presidency. However, the truth is that Mr. Manjoo cannot really prove Mr. Bush really won Ohio, and the presidency. As such, Bush is really no more legitimate in 2004 with Ohio than he was in 2000 with Florida, except that this time it looks like he will not have to invoke his friends on the Surpreme Court.