BuzzFlash Reviews
October 28, 2005
Fooled
Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They'll
Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them)
by
Mark Crispin Miller
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Thinking
back to election night last November, something just didn't seem quite
right. The discrepancy between exit polling that showed Kerry winning
5 battleground states, including the crucial state of Ohio – and therefore
the presidency – and the final vote tallies that miraculously flipped
Ohio
and other
battleground states to allow Bush to "declare victory" seemed,
well, extraordinary.
That nagging feeling in your gut that perhaps something wasn't quite right in the last presidential election, or even worse, that something truly nefarious might have taken place, is validated by a stunning new book from Mark Crispin Miller.
"Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them)" is Miller's meticulous and thorough account how the numbers just don't add up to a Bush reelection. Miller's sharp analysis points in one direction: George W. Bush did not rightfully win the 2004 election and Bush's "victory" was borne out of vote suppression, manipulating the electoral process, fraud and theft.
Mark Crispin Miller, author of "The Bush Dyslexicon" is a leading public intellectual and professor of media studies at New York University. He is also one of BuzzFlash's most admired thinkers and writers today.
"Fooled Again" demonstrates Miller's uncanny ability to weave circumstantial evidence together almost as damning as a smoking gun. For example, Miller highlights Bush's dismal approval ratings all under 50% days before the 2004 election as well as record democratic voter registration and voter turnout. He debunks the myth that waves of evangelicals came out of the woodworks to carry Bush to victory or account for the host of statistical miracles that no pollster can seem to adequately explain. And Miller astutely observes that it was the progressive and liberal bases that were united whereas the conservative base was fractured. Miller's book is best thought of as a closing argument, and if one approaches the topic like a juror with an open mind, its difficult to conceive of any other verdict for the Republican Party other than guilty as charged for stealing the 2004 election.
Miller zeroes in on irregularities in Ohio as ground zero in the right's theft of the 2004 election. Miller skewers Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, who like Katherine Harris in Florida, was determined to tip Ohio in Bush's column despite his responsibility and duty to oversee a fair election.
Although Miller's tone at times construes the reader to think "Fooled Again" is a partisan diatribe, Miller's true purpose is a plea to reform America's broken electoral system to preserve our democracy – a policy that unifies all Americans regardless of political affiliation. Miller calls for doing away with all electronic voting, using standardized paper ballots, and federalizing the electoral system "so that its workers are trained civil servants, not local bigots or politicos."
BuzzFlash strongly recommends "Fooled Again" by Mark Crispin Miller because our democracy simply cannot afford another fraudulent or stolen election.
As George W. Bush said, "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
Our thoughts precisely.
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