Wow. Wow. Dude, did someone threaten your family or something?

Wow. I'm a bit shocked that you left out the Holocaust, Armenian or otherwise. McCarthy? Really? Wow.

Hey, if I can provide you with one, just one, irrefutable chunk of evidence that just one, one, of your listed lies is actually true, would you buy me a Klondike Bar? I'll buy you one if I can't...

                '''
               (o o)
+---------oOOO--(_)------------------+
|          Shhh. Blink twice         |
|       if they're holding you       |
|       hostage.  I'll get help.     |
+----------------------oOOO----------+
              |__|__|
               || ||
              ooO Ooo

Not True: "the Black Panthers were a radical political movement"

Hmmm. Care to elaborate? I thought they were a radical political movement.

Everything else looked right though.

Confused, BA

I think he means the Panthers were just radical, and not a political movement at all. Mark?

I think he means the Panthers were just radical, and not a political movement at all. They certainly weren't running for office. Just thugs, but those guys wore some groovy threads. Superfly!

I think he means the Panthers were just radical, and not a political movement at all. They certainly weren't running for office. Just thugs, but those guys wore some groovy threads. Superfly!

I noticed you left out any of the lies about Clinton (he ran cocaine out of an Arkansas airfield, he or his wife had Vince Foster killed, etc.) I guess those must be true, right?

Allow me to shorten your post a little: Whatever the left believes is a lie. Whatever the Right believes is God's own Truth. Here endeth the Lesson.

Seriously, though, how do you know every one of those is a lie? Just because you don't like it, doesn't necessarily make it untrue. Surely your parents taught you that when you were growing up.

When I was young I was a consumate liar, usually to avoid the consequences for doing something that I knew was wrong. And, when I was young, as W might say, I was a wrongful doer. When I got married and started a family something changed. I won't say that I never lie (because that would be a lie), but, in the long run, the truth really does set you free, plus you don't have to remember what you told someone.

One of the biggest, most recent Leftist lies (actually a seried of related lies) is the Libby/Plame kerfuffle, all of which is finally being laid to rest, but the lies won't stop just because they've been debunked. That's what bothers me most about the Left's lies; they keep repeating them loooooong after they're debunked.

I would agree with all but two items on your list: I'm not paranoid about it, but I still hang on to the notion that Oswald did not act alone in killing Kennedy, and, I'd be really surprised if, somewhere along the way, innocent people have not been executed in this country.

Mark,

You're funny, now go back to your basement, and wait for your contact with the Alpha Centaurians to 'beep' in on your tri-corder.

..........I see dead people...........

There is too much here to discuss in a short post: how do you know for a fact, for instance, that Joe McCarthy didn't unfairly accuse people of being communists? What do you think "Have you, at last, no decency, sir?" all about, then?

But there are several items you call lies that are actually indisputably true. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, indisputably, as a matter of public record, sat on the board of directors of Union Banking Corporation, a company that represented the interests of Fritz Thyssen, a German industrialist who helped bring about the rise of Hitler and was later found guilty of war crimes.

Also, you say the Scopes trial was not an attempt by God-crazed hicks to suppress science. The trial was the prosecution of a school teacher in a small Tennessee town for teaching evolution to students. So where is the lie?

............I see dead people...................

Joe McCarthy unfairly accused people of being communists

I don't know... I thought that it wasn't so much the fact that he accused people; it's the fact that he never let them meet there accusors, often used entirely circumstancial evidence, and he believed that communist leanings necessarily meant that one was a spy, thusly trying people for their opinions rather than their actions. Watch Goodnight and Good Luck.

innocent people have been executed by the American justice system.

Believe it or not, this is actually true, considering that executees have been found innocent post-mortem (don't have a link to pass it up; I saw it on the discovery channnel).

there is a wall of separation between Church and State

Read some Thomas Jefferson. Anyways, this really depends on your beliefs, since there really is no right answer. Think of it this way: Christianity is very much a religion of personal responsibility; forcing people to follow dogma with secular laws goes against that spirit of personal responsibility.

the Scopes trial was an attempt by God-crazed hicks to suppress science

Watch Inherit the Wind. Come on; I thought that you guys wanted to teach both sides? Well I guess that it wasn't people trying to supress science as it was a science teach trying not to be supressed.

You righties cannot tell truth from lies!!! That is why you believe things Tom Delay is a christian when he supports FORCED ABORTIONS in the US controlled Marianas...and you believe there were WMD in Iraq...Hide the Coffins of our brave soldiers...You do not want to see the truth.

We didn't arm Hussein? Are you kidding me? Of course we did. At the time we did it, he was fighting a war against a much greater enemy, an Iranian state that held death to America rallies every other day. Even at that we sent arms to that greater enemy through Israel when hostages and contras made it expediant to do so. Why the blinders?

This is exactly the thing we need to acknowledge and wrestle with. At the time it made sense to arm Hussein, he was by far the lesser of two evils and an important counter-weight to a regional anti-American power. Obviously, the support proved shortsighted due to Hussein's own outsized ambitious leading to the First Gulf War (the text book example of a necessary war where American interests are at stake).

But to brush aside the clear history of America supporting the Iraqi regime in the 1980s is a big mistake. We need to look at things like this as an opportunity to examine other choices such as whether it is shortsighted to support Pakistan or the Ukraine or Saudi Arabia. And your statement concerning Bin Laden, that we didn't "create him" is a simplistic truth that covers for another complicated, short-sighted choice.

We helped arm religious extermists in Afghanistan to defeat the greater evil of the Soviet Union and when they did, we patted ourselves on the back and ignored the aftermath in that country. Again, rational but short-sighted choices lead to greater problems down the road.

Mark, alcholics suffer from denial. DENIAL. They do not believe "they" have a problem. You sir, suffer from denial. You absoultely refuse to consider that there is such an incredible mess, a mess that incompasses everything that W touches, that like an alcoholic, refuse to acknowledge what is right in front of your face. You must seek counseling.

I found this snippet, just the fodder you may consider while undergoing shock therapy.

"Mr. Speaker, yesterday the President said we continue to be wise about how we spend the people's money.

"Then why are we paying over $100,000 for a 'White House Director of Lessons Learned'?

"Maybe I can save the taxpayers $100,000 by running through a few of the lessons this White House should have learned by now.

"Lesson 1: When the Army Chief of Staff and the Secretary of State say you are going to war without enough troops, you're going to war without enough troops.

"Lesson 2: When 8.8 billion dollars of reconstruction funding disappears from Iraq, and 2 billion dollars disappears from Katrina relief, it's time to demand a little accountability.

"Lesson 3: When you've 'turned the corner' in Iraq more times than Danica Patrick at the Indy 500, it means you are going in circles.

"Lesson 4: When the national weather service tells you a category 5 hurricane is heading for New Orleans, a category 5 hurricane is heading to New Orleans.

"I would also ask the President why we're paying for two 'Ethics Advisors' and a 'Director of Fact Checking.'

"They must be the only people in Washington who get more vacation time than the President.

"Maybe the White House could consolidate these positions into a Director of Irony."

This sir, is reality.

Director of Lessons Learned. Sounds absoulutely comical doesn't it.

To think you support and advocate such views is reprehensible.

Denial.

Go to a meeting.

Thank you, Mark, for a much more comprehensive list of conspiracy theories than I was able to come up with on short notice. I, too, have been curious about conspiracty theories and why they exist and who buys into them.

I don't know if you have ever listened to Michael Medved on his Conspiracy Theory days, but you should check out the shows.

I have come to the conclusion that most conspiracies are consciously created by people who know there is a list of Usual Suspects out there who will buy into anything, the goofier the better. I think that these people try to spin events in ways that will promote their own agendas. Note how many of the current theories involve Bush or his family---truly agenda-driven.

Some may be simply a diferent perspective on something. I, for example, have always seen the White House as walking into an ambush on the Plame thing, never believing for a moment that the Wilsons were unaware of the certainty that Cheney's office would check into who really sent him and then try to set the record straight. But I also freely admit that if I were not somewhat (extremely) suspicious of Left efforts to manipulate public opinion I might not have been so skeptical of the wide-eyed innocence and dismay acted out by the Wilsons. Their shock and dismay were akin to that of someone who dropped a brick above his foot and then pretended surprise when it landed there and hurt.

When I visited the Texas Book Depository I could finally understand the reason for so many theories about the Kennedy assassination. The location of the shooters' window, the grassy knoll, the actual dimensions of the area (which is much much smaller than it ever looks in pictures) and so on did lend themselves to speculation about the way things happened. I think if there had been live coverage of the killing, with cameras at many different angles, we might not have had the many theories we have today, and that is why the theories about 9/11 are so bogus.

As for McCarthy, if he was the accuser, the accused certainly knew who was making the accusations, and they had the opportunity to mount a defense.

I note the presence of the new mantra---trying people for their opinions instead of their actions. This is being well-promoted on the Left as a psuedo-reasonable argument for letting suspect people continue with suspect activities until they actually become action. (At which time, I surmise, the Left stridently demands a COMMISSION to look into why the obvious signs were IGNORED and the perpatrators were allowed to continue with their planning.)

In the 50's, having a Communist in the government would be much like having someone from the Taliban, or Al-Queda, in our government now. (or like having the New York Times there...but I digress.) It WAS a big thing, it WAS a threat, and it WAS NOT simply a matter of "...trying people for their opinions rather than their actions." And once again, you cite a MOVIE, made by a known Lefty, promoting Left-wing agendas, as a source. Frawg, citing a movie to prove a point is not very convincing, as every movie is made from one point of view or the other.

YOUR choice of references and sources is clear. In addition to movies, I'll bet you look to Air America and the lefty blogs for "information". GIGO.

It is also a favorite Left diversion to claim that the "Religious Right" is planning to take over the country and impose a "theocracy"---that is to say, a government based on a religion and run by that religion according to its teachings. The only way to do that is to present Christianity as a monolithic mass, united in one goal, united under one teaching. This works for the irreligious, the anti-religious, and the simply ignorant. But it has nothing to do with the reality.

But the Founding Fathers were not so ignorant. While they clearly established this country on the foundation of Christianity, they also and just as clearly prohibited Congress from "establishing" any religion. They understood what the Left refuses to admit, which is that Chrisitanity is a broad umbrella consisting of the general belief that Jesus Christ was the Son of God sent to redeem mankind. They understood that under this umbrella were many many RELIGIONS, each with its own dogma, each with its own teachings. Therefore, they were not only not threatened by Christianity, they were comforted and encouraged by it. They merely wanted to make sure that no Chrisitan RELIGION could be ESTABLISHED as a state religion.

To twist this into a ban on all religion takes a gross and willful misreading of the words of the Constitution. To continue mouthing this "separation" platitude, which originated with a left-wing Supreme Court justice and not with any of the Founding Fathers or any of their documents, is a conscious determination to try to convince others of what one knows to be a lie.

raker---spurce of 'snippet', please. Snide is not the same as accurate. First we were cited Left-wing movies, and now this.

I noted that there was some sensitivity to having some of the barking mad theories identified as such. Explains a lot..........

Since we're bringing up movies,

You people really are living in the matrix. You do not even know what is real anymore. All I can do is shake my head in dismay.

The Army COS and the Sec. of St. really did make those statements folks.

All that money, BILLIONS, not mere millions, is just missing. MISSING. Gone, kaput. Where did it go? Who knows. Who cares. Fight on.

I have not researched it, but come on, really, how many times have we turned the corner.

Really, who could have anticipated the levee breech. Junk science.

We really, really do have a "Director of Lessons Learned". We really, really do have two ethics advisors, and a "Director of fact checking".

You people live in DENIAL. Period.

Using the alcoholic profile, one must consider one of their other sayings. To continue to repeat things over and over (and over) and expect different results is the definition of insanity.

You people are living in DENIAL and are insane.

Maroons.

GF said:
"Believe it or not, this is actually true, considering that executees have been found innocent post-mortem (don't have a link to pass it up; I saw it on the discovery channel)."

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but can one be truly named?

What I am getting at is saying things are true because we 'think' they may be true vs. things we know for a fact to be true.

Case in point, here in VA a guy was executed about 10 years ago for something. He went kicking and screaming to his grave. Was on TV, the Pope intervened and all that.
I even kind of thought we may be innocent. I was a huge death penalty advocate then.

He had some hotshot lawyer promising to clear him even after he was dead. He worked for years to re-open the investigation. Former Gov Warner in one of his last acts authorized some new testing to prove once and for all.

The tests came back for certain, the guy was lying his ass off.

Alm,

My spelling is not what it used to be. You had me on spurce. So I looked it up.

No entry.

I did find sperce. Def: To disperse.

So I get it now, disperse of the snippet. In other words, don't use snippets.

But I like snippets. Even more, I just like the word snippet.

Thank you helping me in increase my vocabulary.

Here's one that might apply: Progress, not perfection. (guess where that came from?)

Raker

Almiranta,

"As for McCarthy, if he was the accuser, the accused certainly knew who was making the accusations, and they had the opportunity to mount a defense."

--You're willfully missing the point. McCarthy was using information gleened from 'who knows where' and then asserting it as fact, and then grilling people, in public, about their beliefs, without having anything but hearsay and conjecture to ruin people's lives. Not only did he ruin people's lives and careers, he abused public power in his completely baseless "investigations". But I wouldn't be surprised if you did find these actions to be warranted and his finding "demonized by Democrats".

The point is you cannot honestly throw people in jail for things they MIGHT do, perhaps we can start overloading our cirminal justice systems with people who PLANNED to commit larceny.

"To continue mouthing this "separation" platitude, which originated with a left-wing Supreme Court justice and not with any of the Founding Fathers or any of their documents, is a conscious determination to try to convince others of what one knows to be a lie."

--Actually in Jefferson's letter to the "Danbury Baptists", he uses the term "wall of separation between church and state", personally I read this to be more of a protection FOR the religious, that the government will not get involved in their business, but I can see the argument that the religious shouldn't involve their dogma in politics.

"Strongly guarded . . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States." -James Madison

"Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate." -Ulysses S. Grant

"Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either . . . ." -Thomas Jefferson

Mark, does making up your OWN truth constitute lying? Does ignoring facts in a lifelong vendetta to bash people who do not agree with your views and claiming they are wrong, making up your own facts as you go along to support your beliefs, constitute lying?

If so, then you have been CONSISTENTLY lying every time you write an entry for this blog. You only want to belittle others' views and bash the left for theirs.

Perhaps you might want to reevaluate yourself before you criticize others....

BTW, McCarthy DID accuse people unfairly, and innocent people HAVE died in the justice system, and the Black Pathers WERE a radical political movement. These things are a matter of public record. Maybe you should take the time to research history, REAL history, not just your own view, before opening your mouth.

Here is another untruth:
“We really do need to prosecute Joe Wilson and others (likely at the DNC and Kerry campaign) who cooked up this whole, bogus story in an election year ploy to try and slander the President in to defeat in November of 2004.” By Mark Noonan at 01:46 AM

The initial investigation was launched by the DoJ in the summer of 2003, and the special prosecutor was appointed in Oct. of ’03. Bush himself, approved of the investigation, so Mark you are lying about who initiated the investigation, and the year (2003 and not 2004 the election year).

But than again, as you wrote “For about the past 9 months, I have been making a diligent effort to not lie at all.” So which of your quotes are the lie?

Here is a "truth":

WTC 7 imploded into it footprint because the debris that fell on it caused an internal fire.

You people need to pull your heads out vis-a-vis "Tail Gunner Joe." While you were pouring over Buckley's "Senator McCarthy and his enemies" and other revisionist horse sh*t, you might have at least looked at Barry Goldwater's last book -- he makes it abundantly clear that the Republicans realized that the old lush was a dangerous loose cannon and had to be stopped. That's why they sent Goldwater down (he played the "angel of death" for Nixon too)to tell him that it was all over.
I swear, you guys definately are ridin' the crazy train.

Here is another great untruth:

The real answers to all these paranoid conspiracy theories can be found in (drumroll) HOLLYWOOD MOVIES!

When one's argument consists of "go see (insert movie title here)" instead of the production of measurable facts, one has conceded the argument.

For about the past 9 months, I have been making a diligent effort to not lie at all

Well, if you use the "it's not a lie if you really believe it" metric, you're doing a bang-up job. If you use the normal-people metric...well, back to the drawing board with you.

Gully,

'Resistance is futile' --Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Man, leave the frawg alone, both of those flicks were well made movies, try arguing any of the other points in the thread, instead of latching on to a single point you can actually refute.

Georgia,

I didn't say that McCarthy wasn't a heavy drinker who let power get the better of him or anything like that - I merely pointed out that "McCarthy unfairly accused people of being communists" is an untrue statement. As declassified documents - American and Russian - have shown, all of those accused of being communists and fellow travellers were, whadya know?, communists and fellow travellers.

You might have seen something on the discovery channel about innocents being executed, but I assure you that it isn't true - and exhaustive study by death penalty opponents demonstrated that there are no verfied cases of innocent people having been put to death in the United States by our judicial system (lynching and vigilantism have done so, but not the actual justice system of the United States). Some people have been executed who maybe should not have due to extenuating circumstances, but no one who was actually innocent has been demonstrated to have been executed under the auspices of the United States government.

When I say there is now wall of separation it is and absolutely correct statement, as you cannot point to any such phrase in any American law. You may want there to be such a wall, but there isn't - unless, of course, you just judicially ignore the law and pretend there is one anyways.

The Scopes trial was a set up - it did what it was designed to do, and everyone - including the "religious hicks" who were in on the scam - played their parts.

UofAZgrad,

I'd say get back to school, but they'd just feed you even more nonsense.

Repeat after me: The United States did not arm Saddam.

Did you know that Brazil provided more military hardware to Saddam than the US and Great Britain combined? And that the materials provided by US and GB were sent illegally through third party arms dealers the US and British government had no knowledge of?

You are aware, aren't you, that Saddam was armed with T-72 tanks, AK-47 rifles, Mirage 2000 fighters? You do know that those are Russian and French made, right?

Get a grip - stop listening to lies.

Barney,

You are aware that Wilson wrote his op-ed just a month after becoming a Kerry advisor, right?

That little fact didn't escape you, did it?

Mark,

Can you provide me with some of the links and quotes that the people who were named in McCarthy's rantings [Dorothy Kenyon, Haldore Hanson, Philip Jessup, Esther Brunauer, Frederick Schuman, Harlow Shapley, Gustavo Duran, John S. Service and Owen Lattimore] were communists, and I mean active communists with ill intent for this country, not just people with socialist leanings and sympathies for the ideology...I await your proof.

Mark-

What law says that there is no wall of separation?

The closest thing in the constitution to mentioning a wall (1st amendment) would imply that it should exist.

Tell me, Mark, when it comes to the constitution, are you a strict constructionist?

Georgia,

Only if you read it with, well, really silly glasses on:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

Thats it - its all there is about religion in the Constitution other than there shall be no religious test for public office, which, if it implies anything, implies that religious people are not to be prevented from bringing their religious views to the public square.

No wall - never has been and, God be praised, never will be.

Mark... really, silly glasses?

"...no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

Are you trying to say that that doesn't mean that the government should not establish a religion? Wow, it's a good thing that you are not a judge... I would have to call you an activist.

Now, if you want to mess with the syntax of that phrase ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"), it can mean exactly mean two things:

1.) It can mean that congress cannot establish a state religion.

Or, if you make religion a modifier to establishment and make it mean"Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment"...

2.) Congress can make no law respcting religion, period.

Funny isn't it?

An "establishment of religion" could either mean the act of establishing a religion or a religion establishment.

Your point about "no religious test for public office" isn't even mentioned in the part of the first amendment you quoted (it would be the part about prohibiting the free exercise thereof).

You still haven't answered my question. What law says that there is no wall? I have a supreme court decision that says otherwise, but I will let you go first.

Mark... really, silly glasses?

"...no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

Are you trying to say that that doesn't mean that the government should not establish a religion? Wow, it's a good thing that you are not a judge... I would have to call you an activist.

Now, if you want to mess with the syntax of that phrase ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"), it can mean exactly mean two things:

1.) It can mean that congress cannot establish a state religion.

Or, if you make religion a modifier to establishment and make it mean"Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment"...

2.) Congress can make no law respcting religion, period.

Funny isn't it?

An "establishment of religion" could either mean the act of establishing a religion or a religion establishment.

Your point about "no religious test for public office" isn't even mentioned in the part of the first amendment you quoted (it would be the part about prohibiting the free exercise thereof).

You still haven't answered my question. What law says that there is no wall? I have a supreme court decision that says otherwise, but I will let you go first.

Damn server errors.

You guys should start a war on (server) Error.

"You might have seen something on the discovery channel about innocents being executed, but I assure you that it isn't true - and exhaustive study by death penalty opponents demonstrated that there are no verfied cases of innocent people having been put to death in the United States by our judicial system (lynching and vigilantism have done so, but not the actual justice system of the United States)."

Ahhhh, but there are people who have been convicted and sent to death row, only later to have been released for being proved innocent. Are you telling me an innocent man has never been tried and put to death?

TEO,
It was called the Vanona Project, do some real research, liberals have been throughly discredited on the facts, instead accusing McCarthy of drinking to excess.

TEO,
It was called the Vanona Project, do some real research, liberals have been throughly discredited on the facts, instead accusing McCarthy of drinking to excess.

Barney,
You are aware that Wilson wrote his op-ed just a month after becoming a Kerry advisor, right?
That little fact didn't escape you, did it?

Mark, that does not change the facts that:
-The op-ed was not published in an election year as you stated.
And
-Everything stated in the op-ed was true.

So you lied right before you made this grand statement of your truthiness.

TEO,

Well, Guzman fought with the communists in Spain, and wasn an agent of the Comintern; Lattimore was a known associate of Soviet agents, and even wrote glowingly of the Kolmya slave labor camp in the USSR...

If you want to deny it all and say these were just persecuted liberals - if you want to say that in the face of all the info that has come out from the KGB and Stasi archives and what we learned via Venona, then that is your business.

Barney- Great Colbert reference.

Mark- I am still waiting for your law of no separation.

"Of the 110 names that McCarthy gave the Tydings Committee to be investigated, 62 of them were employed by the State Department at the time of the hearings. The committee cleared everyone on McCarthy's list, but within a year the State Department started proceedings against 49 of the 62. By the end of 1954, 81 of those on McCarthy's list had left the government either by dismissal or resignation.

John Stewart Service, Philip Jessup, and Owen Lattimore.* Five years before McCarthy mentioned the name of John Stewart Service, Service was arrested for giving classified documents to the editors of Amerasia, a communist magazine. The Truman Administration, however, managed to cover up the espionage scandal and Service was never punished for his crime. McCarthy also produced considerable evidence that Service had been "part of the pro-Soviet group" that wanted to bring communism to China, but the Tydings Committee said that Service was "not disloyal, pro-communist, or a security risk." Over the next 18 months, the State Department's Loyalty Security Board cleared Service four more times, but finally, in December 1951, the Civil Service Commission Loyalty Review Board found that there was "reasonable doubt" as to his loyalty and ousted him from the State Department.

* Evidence presented in the other six cases showed that two (Haldore Hanson and Gustavo Duran) had been identified as members of the Communist Party, that three (Dorothy Kenyon, Frederick Schuman, and Harlow Shapley) had extensive records of joining communist fronts and supporting communist causes, and that one (Esther Brunauer) had sufficient questionable associations to be dismissed from the State Department as a security risk in June 1952. For further details, see chapter seven of McCarthy and His Enemies, by William Buckley and Brent Bozell."
James J. Drummey

Bob Arctor,

Oh, the Black Panthers - they were a drug-dealing, pimping, murdering street gang which parroted a bit of mindless, Marxist twaddle and that was enough to sucker rich, white liberals into thinking they were a radical political group.

morphie said "Are you telling me an innocent man has never been tried and put to death?"

Can you name one person who has been exonerated after they were executed?

Update: After I typed that last line, I remembered in today's paper Virgina's coat tail govna cleared a woman executed 300 years ago for being a witch.

Morphie,

I am asserting precisely that - no innocent person has ever been executed under the auspices of the United States government.

Morphie,

Realise I need to clarify - no innocent person has been executed under the auspices of the US government, or any State government.

Barney,

It changes all sorts of things - and your wilfull blindness on the matter is actually rather pathetic at this late a date...

Georgia,

What the first amendment does is prevent the government from establishing a national religion (like the Church of England), and also ensures that government will never interfere with the exercise of religion by the people....says absolutely nothing vis a vis the people, say, enacting through their local school boards that prayer to God shall be offered each morning before class begins....it doesn't say that the image of a crucifix on the LA County Seal is Congress making a law respecting an establishment of religion...

Like so many things, the first amendment doesn't say what the leftwingers want it to say...

Mark, it is apparent that neither of us are going to budge... so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

And what was that law that says that there is no separation? Really... I must know.

Yes Mark, I can't tell you how comforting it is to know that when I've been brainwashed by the left-leaning MSM (sarcasm on) and have nowhere to turn, I can always rely on Blogs for Bush for a dose of reality. The truth in its purest form is like a rose unfolding in the morning sun-sniff, leaves me all teary-eyed!

My takes inserted parenthetically:

A conspiracy killed JFK (maybe not - but you have to admit that that was one freaky bullet!); Joe McCarthy unfairly accused people of being communists (oh please - McCarthy cast a wide net that was more an attempt at political self-promotion than anything else. If you cast a wide enough net that sweeps up hundreds, yes, you're going to nab a few actual commies by accident, which means you unfairly accused lots and lots of people. Don't believe everything you read from the fact-challenged Ms Coulter!) ; a conspiracy killed Martin Luther King (probably not - but, *sigh*, why is it that the good die young, while the mediocre and the barbaric ascend to the oval office?); a conspiracy killed Bobby Kennedy (ditto); Sacco and Vanzetti were persecuted because of their ethnicity and radical views (who knows); we liberated Afghanistan in order to build an oil pipeline (actually, I think you are right in that we were motivated by the best intentions in Afghanistan. I think saying it was for an oil pipeline is beyond cynical. But "liberated"? I doubt liberation was our prime motive); Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were persecuted because of their faith and radical views (well, perhaps not. But they were not critical, central figures in atomic espionage. Our paranoia about "card carrying commies" meant that Klaus Fuchs could steal critical atomic secrets right under the noses of the FBI, who were focused instead on people with a particular political affiliation); the Jews control American foreign policy (to say that they control it might be an overstatement. But it is true that the pro-Israeli lobby has held undo influence over American MidEast policy for decades, and that Zionist Jews are key players in the neo-con circles that currently run much of President Cheney's MidEast policy); we liberated Kosovo in order to build an oil pipeline (no, we were protecting them from impending genocide); Castro's Cuba provides health care for all (actually, Cuba does in fact provide healthcare to all, and very good care at that. In fact, Cuban physicians are extremely well trained - if not well-remunerated - and the Cuban people rank ahead of the US in just about every category relating to health. Cubans have a longer life expectancy and a much lower rate of infant mortality than Americans. All Cubans receive cradle to grave healthcare); the United States created bin Laden (no - but W and the neo-cons need bin Laden to justify their excesses); Alger Hiss wasn't a communist (no proof that he was); the Scopes trial was an attempt by God-crazed hicks to suppress science (um, then what was it? Evolution happened - deal with it) ; Mumia Jamal is being persecuted because of his race and radical views (he may be guilty - but it's a fact that blacks are more likely to receive the death penalty than whites for the same crime. I suppose that would go double for a black man who also openly expouses radical views); the Black Panthers were a radical political movement (they weren't?); Al Gore would have won Florida if all the ballots had been counted (actually, a consortium of newspapers did count all the ballots after Bush took office. Separate counts were done using every conceivable criteria - only fully punched holes counted, or only chad hanging by one corner counted, or two corners, or 3, or counting dimples as votes. Under every counting criteria, it was found that Gore won if all the votes were counted from every precinct. Ironically, the only scenario in which Gore would have lost a recount was the very one he tried to pursue: recounting just selected counties where he felt he was favored. Doh!); innocent people have been executed by the American justice system (what is absolutely true is that dozens of people on death row have been exonerated by DNA evidence. In fact, it was found in 2002 that 13 inmates on death row in Illinois could not possibly have committed the crimes, which caused Gov Ryan - a Republican and former advocate of the death penalty - to commute all Illinois death sentences to life); the United States armed Saddam (the US absolutely did provide weapons to Saddam. He made the purchases - these were not secret transactions, unlike the weapons Reagan funneled to terrorists in Iran...); there is a wall of separation between Church and State (well, not so much anymore! - not since the Bush fundies started tearing it down. Hey, if you want no separation between church and state, I would suggest that you'd be more happy in Iran or Afghanistan under the Taliban); George W Bush's grandfather financed the Nazis ("financed" - no. But he and other American inductrialists had no problem doing business with them)...

Mark,

The first amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. You’re changing its meaning so that it allows government establishment of religion. Public schools are government entities. Organized prayer in public schools is establishing a government religion, whatever religion the organized prayer would pertain to. Not establishing a religion means not establishing a religion. It doesn’t mean not starting a national church. Religion is a lot more than starting a church. The writers of the Constitution could have written Congress shall make no law establishing a church but they didn’t. They wrote religion, not church.

Aarontime,

Geesh - for crying out loud, the consortium of newspapers which did the recount found that by all methods EXCEPT for one which Gore did not pursue, President Bush would have won the recount in Floria. You've got it exactly backwards...but no surpise at all.

"Who knows" on the Sacco and Vanzetti case? Well, his lawyer knew - and his lawyer told Sinclair Lewis, who then knowingly and deliberately lied about the case, thus getting the ball rolling on the 80 year long absurdity on the left about Sacco and Vanzetti being innocent....for the love of God, man, the only reason the Sacco and Vanzetti case became know is because Soviet agents wanted to stir an anti-American pot and managed - with the help of willing dupes - to craft a fantasy around the Sacco and Vanzetti story.

Ah, its hopeless with people like you - you'll believe what you want to believe because it is easier than thinking.

Brian,

In 1787, "establishing a religion" meant creating something akin to the Church of England, which one had to adhere to in order to hold public office in England. That is what they were preventing - not preventing prayer in public schools. What ass would think they planned that, when they opened each session of the Constitutional Convention with a prayer?

Bane and Mark,

You guys are truly a joke. I read through your "facts" regarding Venona, and while interesting reading, NOT A SINGLE MENTION of the 9 individuals that McCarthy held up as infiltrators; Instead what we see is that there were infact KGB and communist agents in the US, La-Di-Frickin'-Da, this is not news gentlemen, we had our own spies over there.

Do you guys think that you can just steal snippets from a single blog and hold this up as truth? If the Info that McCarthy was presenting was known by the CIA and FBI then why did these folks end up getting black-balled by conjecture, instead of eating PB&J in federal prison, waiting for their bullet?

There is NO, let me repeat this, NO information in Venona or otherwise to implicate the folks he held up as communist spies, they may have been communist sympathisers, but that isn't illegal, being a spy, IS, get the difference?

You guys need to get a grip if you really spend your free time trying to prove that one of the worst publicity stunts in recent American history was a patriot trying to protect his mother-land.

Mark,

You write: "Geesh - for crying out loud, the consortium of newspapers which did the recount found that by all methods EXCEPT for one which Gore did not pursue, President Bush would have won the recount in Floria. You've got it exactly backwards...but no surpise at all."

Uh, no Mark - it is you who have it backwards. The newspaper consortium found that under every standard, a recount of the entire state gave Gore the win. But had the limited recounts requested by Gore in specific counties gone forward, or had the limited count of undervotes requested by the Florida Supreme court gone forward, then Bush would have prevailed. Kind of ironic, no?

Here are the results of the newspaper consorotium's recount, published on Nov 12, 2001:

Review of All Ballots Statewide
• Standard as set by each county Canvassing Board during their survey... Gore by 171
• Fully punched chads and limited marks on optical ballots... Gore by 115
• Any dimples or optical mark... Gore by 107
• One corner of chad detached or optical mark ... Gore by 60

Review of Limited Sets of Ballots
• Gore request for recounts of all ballots in Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Volusia counties... Bush by 225
• Florida Supreme Court of all undervotes statewide... Bush by 430

Sorry Mark. But as you say, I am not surprised you got it all wrong.

Mark,

It is absurd to assert that the US had nothing to do with arming Saddam. The military resources and material that the US provided Iraq during its war with Iran is WELL documented.

Just let me know if you would like some examples.

Mark,

The Convention of 1787 was not opened with prayers. Ben Franklin suggested that but his motion was turned down:

Much has been made of Benjamin Franklin's suggestion that the Convention open its morning sessions with prayer. His motion was turned down, however, and not again taken up. Franklin himself noted that "with the exception of 3 or 4, most thought prayers unnecessary." (Ferrand, Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, rev. ed., Vol. 1, p.452.)

prayer is unconstitutional. I’m sure they have a much better understanding of Constitutional Law
Federal judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents have ruled that school than you do.

Brian,

You are correct - and I was wrong that each session was opened with prayer...but there was a motion for prayer, it was carried and Washington, President of the Convention, led the entire group in to church to here a sermon, and then engage in several days of prayerful reflection...at the end of it all, it was voted that both houses of the new Congress should have a chaplain, initially paid $500.00 a year.

There is no wall - the Framers would not have built a wall and then hired a chaplain.

The founders of this nation meant "freedom of religion" not "freedom from religion". The founders of this nation did not intend for God to be removed from public and government life. The founders meant that no one religion (e.g. Methodist, Catholic, Baptist) would be designated as the state religion, not that there would be NO RELIGION!

From the Library of Congress Website...

"It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church. Within a year of his inauguration, Jefferson began attending church services in the House of Representatives. Madison followed Jefferson's example, although unlike Jefferson, who rode on horseback to church in the Capitol, Madison came in a coach and four. Worship services in the House--a practice that continued until after the Civil War--were acceptable to Jefferson because they were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared. (Catholic priests began officiating in 1826.) As early as January 1806 a female evangelist, Dorothy Ripley, delivered a camp meeting-style exhortation in the House to Jefferson, Vice President Aaron Burr, and a 'crowded audience.' Throughout his administration Jefferson permitted church services in executive branch buildings. The Gospel was also preached in the Supreme Court chambers."

From the Library of Congress Website...

"The Old House of Representatives... Church services were held in what is now called Statuary Hall from 1807 to 1857. The first services in the Capitol, held when the government moved to Washington in the fall of 1800, were conducted in the 'hall' of the House in the north wing of the building. In 1801 the House moved to temporary quarters in the south wing, called the 'Oven,' which it vacated in 1804, returning to the north wing for three years. Services were conducted in the House until after the Civil War. The Speaker's podium was used as the preacher's pulpit."

Bibles were used as school text books.

The founders never meant for "a wall of separation" to remove God from public view!

AAR

Errortime, the "consortium" you referenced so reverently is a blatantly left-wing anti-Bush group.

For balance, there is this article:

"Headlines this weekend recited the old line "Dems accuse Bush of stealing the 2000 election." Former U.S. Representative Carrie Meek received a wildly enthusiastic response from delegates to the Florida Democratic convention with calls that "We should be ready for revenge!" Retired General Wesley Clark told delegates he fought for democracy and free elections in Vietnam and Europe only to see "the taking" of the presidency by Republicans in 2000. Senator John Edwards said, "We had more votes; we won!" Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts said: "None of us are going to forget." More vaguely, Senator Joe Lieberman claimed that Bush "stretched the truth" to get his way in 2000. Of course, Terry McAuliffe was beating the same old drum. They should all get over it.

The stolen election supposedly incorporated many wrongs, but foremost was discrimination against Democratic African-American voters: Faulty voting machines were said to have thrown out their votes at higher rates. Also included are claims that the voters' intent wasn't properly divined, that Republicans on the Supreme Court felt compelled to covertly snatch the election, and that African-Americans were intimidated into not voting or were erroneously placed on the ineligible list at higher rates than other racial groups.

These charges have been rebutted before, but with so much misinformation and people's short memories simply accepting the charges, many risk believing that they are true. There has also been new research — of which most people may not be aware — which helps replace myth with reality.

1. THE MYTH OF THE FLAWED VOTING MACHINES & DEMOCRATIC DISENFRANCHISEMENT

Suppose spoiled or non-voted ballots really did indicate disenfranchisement, rather than voter preferences. Then, according to the precinct-level vote data compiled by USA Today and other newspapers, the group most victimized in the Florida voting was African-American Republicans, and by a dramatic margin, too.

Earlier this year I published an article in the Journal of Legal Studies analyzing the USA Today data, and it shows that African-American Republicans who voted were 54 to 66 times more likely than the average African American to cast a non-voted ballot (either by not marking that race or voting for too many candidates). To put it another way: For every two additional black Republicans in the average precinct, there was one additional non-voted ballot. By comparison, it took an additional 125 African Americans (of any party affiliation) in the average precinct to produce the same result.

Some readers may be surprised that black Republicans even exist in Florida, but, in fact, there are 22,270 such registered voters — or about one for every 20 registered black Democrats. This is a large number when you consider that the election in the state was decided by fewer than 1,000 votes. Since these Republicans were more than 50 times more likely to suffer non-voted ballots than other African Americans, the reasonable conclusion is that George W. Bush was penalized more by the losses of African-American votes than Al Gore.

Democrats have also claimed that low-income voters suffered non-voted ballots disproportionately. Yet, the data decisively reject this conclusion. For example, the poorest voters, those in households making less than $15,000 a year, had non-voted ballots at less than one-fifteenth the rate of voters in families making over $500,000.

It is difficult to believe that wealthy people were more confused by the ballot than poor people. Perhaps the rich or black Republicans simply did not like the choices for president and so did not vote on that part of the ballot. Perhaps there was tampering, but it is difficult to see how it could have been carried out and covered up. We may never know, but, clearly, the figures show that income and race were only one-third as important in explaining non-voted ballots as the methods and machines used in voting. For example, setting up the names in a straight line appears to produce many fewer problems than listing names on different pages or in separate columns.

2. THE MYTH THAT AFRICAN AMERICANS WERE INCORRECTLY PLACED ON THE CONVICTED-FELONS LIST AT A HIGHER RATE THAN OTHER GROUPS

The evidence on convicted felons comes from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission's Majority Report, which states: "The chance of being placed on this list [the exclusion list] in error is greater if the voter is African-American." The evidence they provide indicates that African-Americans had a greater share of successful appeals. However, since African-Americans also constituted an even greater share of the list to begin with, whites were actually the most likely to be erroneously on the list (a 9.9-percent error rate for whites versus only a 5.1-percent error rate for blacks). The rate for Hispanics (8.7 percent) is also higher than for blacks. The Commission's own table thus proves the opposite of what they claim. A greater percentage of whites and Hispanics who were placed on the disqualifying list were originally placed there in error.

In any case, this evidence has nothing to do with whether people were in the end improperly prevented from voting, and there are no data presented on that point. The Majority Report's evidence only examines those who successfully appealed and says nothing about how many of those who didn't appeal could have successfully done so.

3. THE MYTH THAT GORE WOULD HAVE WON IF RECOUNT HAD ONLY BEEN ALLOWED
There were two news consortiums conducting massive recounts of Florida's ballots. One group was headed by USA Today and the Miami Herald. The other one was headed by eight newsgroups including the Washington Post, New York Times, L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, the Associated Press, and CNN. Surprisingly, the two groups came to very similar conclusions. To quote from the USA Today group's findings (May 11, 2001) on different recounts:

Who would have won if Al Gore had gotten the manual counts he requested in four counties? Answer: George W. Bush.
Who would have won if the U.S. Supreme Court had not stopped the hand recount of undervotes, which are ballots that registered no machine-readable vote for president? Answer: Bush, under three of four standards.

Who would have won if all disputed ballots — including those rejected by machines because they had more than one vote for president — had been recounted by hand? Answer: Bush, under the two most widely used standards; Gore, under the two least used.

Of course, Florida law provided no mechanism to ask for a statewide recount a la the last option, only county-by-county recounts. And of course neither Gore's campaign nor the Florida Supreme Court ever asked for such a recount.

4. DON'T FORGET THE EARLY MEDIA CALL

Florida polls were open until 8 P.M. on election night. The problem was that Florida's ten heavily Republican western-panhandle counties are on Central, not Eastern, time. When polls closed at 8 P.M. EST in most of the state, the western-panhandle polling places were still open for another hour. Yet, at 8 Eastern, all the networks (ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and NBC) incorrectly announced many times over the next hour that the polls were closed in the entire state. CBS national news made 18 direct statements that the polls had closed.

Polling conducted after the election indicates that the media had an impact on voter behavior, and that the perception of Democratic wins discouraged Republican voters. Democratic strategist Bob Beckel concluded Mr. Bush suffered a net loss of up to 8,000 votes in the panhandle after Florida was called early for Gore. Another survey of western-panhandle voters conducted by John McLaughlin & Associates, a Republican polling company, immediately after the election estimated that the early call cost Bush approximately 10,000 votes.

Using voting data for presidential elections from 1976 to 2000, my own own empirical estimates that attempted to control for a variety of factors affecting turnout imply that Bush received as many as 7,500 to 10,000 fewer votes than he would normally have expected. Little change appears to have occurred in the rate that non-Republicans voted.

Terry McAuliffe clearly stated his strategy "to use the anger and resentment that will come out of that 2000 election, put it in a positive way to energize the Democratic base." Democrats have used the notion that Bush is an illegitimate president to justify everything from their harsh campaign rhetoric to their filibusters against his judicial appointments.

More could be said about these myths, but most of them hardly merit discussion. Unfortunately, as Terry McAuliffe implies, these falsehoods will continue to be trumpeted frequently over the next year; thankfully, a few facts can help dispel them."

I've learned to copy a post and hold it till I see if it is recovered from cyberspace. In this case it appears it has disappeared---it it ends up being duplicated, blame Matt---you seem to be blaming him for everything else anyway......
...............................................

Errortime, the "consortium" you referenced so reverently is a blatantly left-wing anti-Bush group.

For balance, there is this article:

"Headlines this weekend recited the old line "Dems accuse Bush of stealing the 2000 election." Former U.S. Representative Carrie Meek received a wildly enthusiastic response from delegates to the Florida Democratic convention with calls that "We should be ready for revenge!" Retired General Wesley Clark told delegates he fought for democracy and free elections in Vietnam and Europe only to see "the taking" of the presidency by Republicans in 2000. Senator John Edwards said, "We had more votes; we won!" Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts said: "None of us are going to forget." More vaguely, Senator Joe Lieberman claimed that Bush "stretched the truth" to get his way in 2000. Of course, Terry McAuliffe was beating the same old drum. They should all get over it.

The stolen election supposedly incorporated many wrongs, but foremost was discrimination against Democratic African-American voters: Faulty voting machines were said to have thrown out their votes at higher rates. Also included are claims that the voters' intent wasn't properly divined, that Republicans on the Supreme Court felt compelled to covertly snatch the election, and that African-Americans were intimidated into not voting or were erroneously placed on the ineligible list at higher rates than other racial groups.

These charges have been rebutted before, but with so much misinformation and people's short memories simply accepting the charges, many risk believing that they are true. There has also been new research — of which most people may not be aware — which helps replace myth with reality.

1. THE MYTH OF THE FLAWED VOTING MACHINES & DEMOCRATIC DISENFRANCHISEMENT

Suppose spoiled or non-voted ballots really did indicate disenfranchisement, rather than voter preferences. Then, according to the precinct-level vote data compiled by USA Today and other newspapers, the group most victimized in the Florida voting was African-American Republicans, and by a dramatic margin, too.

Earlier this year I published an article in the Journal of Legal Studies analyzing the USA Today data, and it shows that African-American Republicans who voted were 54 to 66 times more likely than the average African American to cast a non-voted ballot (either by not marking that race or voting for too many candidates). To put it another way: For every two additional black Republicans in the average precinct, there was one additional non-voted ballot. By comparison, it took an additional 125 African Americans (of any party affiliation) in the average precinct to produce the same result.

Some readers may be surprised that black Republicans even exist in Florida, but, in fact, there are 22,270 such registered voters — or about one for every 20 registered black Democrats. This is a large number when you consider that the election in the state was decided by fewer than 1,000 votes. Since these Republicans were more than 50 times more likely to suffer non-voted ballots than other African Americans, the reasonable conclusion is that George W. Bush was penalized more by the losses of African-American votes than Al Gore.

Democrats have also claimed that low-income voters suffered non-voted ballots disproportionately. Yet, the data decisively reject this conclusion. For example, the poorest voters, those in households making less than $15,000 a year, had non-voted ballots at less than one-fifteenth the rate of voters in families making over $500,000.

It is difficult to believe that wealthy people were more confused by the ballot than poor people. Perhaps the rich or black Republicans simply did not like the choices for president and so did not vote on that part of the ballot. Perhaps there was tampering, but it is difficult to see how it could have been carried out and covered up. We may never know, but, clearly, the figures show that income and race were only one-third as important in explaining non-voted ballots as the methods and machines used in voting. For example, setting up the names in a straight line appears to produce many fewer problems than listing names on different pages or in separate columns.

2. THE MYTH THAT AFRICAN AMERICANS WERE INCORRECTLY PLACED ON THE CONVICTED-FELONS LIST AT A HIGHER RATE THAN OTHER GROUPS

The evidence on convicted felons comes from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission's Majority Report, which states: "The chance of being placed on this list [the exclusion list] in error is greater if the voter is African-American." The evidence they provide indicates that African-Americans had a greater share of successful appeals. However, since African-Americans also constituted an even greater share of the list to begin with, whites were actually the most likely to be erroneously on the list (a 9.9-percent error rate for whites versus only a 5.1-percent error rate for blacks). The rate for Hispanics (8.7 percent) is also higher than for blacks. The Commission's own table thus proves the opposite of what they claim. A greater percentage of whites and Hispanics who were placed on the disqualifying list were originally placed there in error.

In any case, this evidence has nothing to do with whether people were in the end improperly prevented from voting, and there are no data presented on that point. The Majority Report's evidence only examines those who successfully appealed and says nothing about how many of those who didn't appeal could have successfully done so.

3. THE MYTH THAT GORE WOULD HAVE WON IF RECOUNT HAD ONLY BEEN ALLOWED
There were two news consortiums conducting massive recounts of Florida's ballots. One group was headed by USA Today and the Miami Herald. The other one was headed by eight newsgroups including the Washington Post, New York Times, L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, the Associated Press, and CNN. Surprisingly, the two groups came to very similar conclusions. To quote from the USA Today group's findings (May 11, 2001) on different recounts:

Who would have won if Al Gore had gotten the manual counts he requested in four counties? Answer: George W. Bush.
Who would have won if the U.S. Supreme Court had not stopped the hand recount of undervotes, which are ballots that registered no machine-readable vote for president? Answer: Bush, under three of four standards.

Who would have won if all disputed ballots — including those rejected by machines because they had more than one vote for president — had been recounted by hand? Answer: Bush, under the two most widely used standards; Gore, under the two least used.

Of course, Florida law provided no mechanism to ask for a statewide recount a la the last option, only county-by-county recounts. And of course neither Gore's campaign nor the Florida Supreme Court ever asked for such a recount.

4. DON'T FORGET THE EARLY MEDIA CALL

Florida polls were open until 8 P.M. on election night. The problem was that Florida's ten heavily Republican western-panhandle counties are on Central, not Eastern, time. When polls closed at 8 P.M. EST in most of the state, the western-panhandle polling places were still open for another hour. Yet, at 8 Eastern, all the networks (ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and NBC) incorrectly announced many times over the next hour that the polls were closed in the entire state. CBS national news made 18 direct statements that the polls had closed.

Polling conducted after the election indicates that the media had an impact on voter behavior, and that the perception of Democratic wins discouraged Republican voters. Democratic strategist Bob Beckel concluded Mr. Bush suffered a net loss of up to 8,000 votes in the panhandle after Florida was called early for Gore. Another survey of western-panhandle voters conducted by John McLaughlin & Associates, a Republican polling company, immediately after the election estimated that the early call cost Bush approximately 10,000 votes.

Using voting data for presidential elections from 1976 to 2000, my own own empirical estimates that attempted to control for a variety of factors affecting turnout imply that Bush received as many as 7,500 to 10,000 fewer votes than he would normally have expected. Little change appears to have occurred in the rate that non-Republicans voted.

Terry McAuliffe clearly stated his strategy "to use the anger and resentment that will come out of that 2000 election, put it in a positive way to energize the Democratic base." Democrats have used the notion that Bush is an illegitimate president to justify everything from their harsh campaign rhetoric to their filibusters against his judicial appointments.

More could be said about these myths, but most of them hardly merit discussion. Unfortunately, as Terry McAuliffe implies, these falsehoods will continue to be trumpeted frequently over the next year; thankfully, a few facts can help dispel them."

Yep, nothing like reposting to nudge that lost post out