Cannonfire

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Irony

First of all, there is some irony in my linking to a BradBlog story these days. But this one, on the Franken-Coleman race, is good.

Coleman's lead keeps shrinking: Right now, it is down to 236 votes. Al Franken -- one of the few Democrats I continue to admire -- has pinned his hopes on the possibility that the "mother machines" scanning the ballots gave Coleman an unfair boost. Those machines were manufactured by Diebold and and ES&S -- and you know the problems there.

Here's the irony. Back in 2004 and 2005, you would not have known about the problems there if you got all of your news from Al Franken's radio show. The subject of computerized vote tampering (or "miscounting") did not make Al Franken feel very comfortable. To the best of my recollection (mind you, I did not listen every day), he did not make broadcast time available to anyone arguing that Kerry got robbed.

That situation fits the definition of irony, does it not?

posted: 8:29 PM

8 COMMENTS - CLICK HERE

Comments:

I don't know Franken's history. I thought he was always liberal. Did he shift over the years?

http://www.DailyPUMA.com

posted by

Alessandro Machi : 10:16 PM

He is liberal. Did I indicate otherwise?

Have I ever said that I was anything else?

posted by

Joseph : 5:30 AM

Joe, do you know if there's viability in any of the COLB lawsuits now?

posted by

creeper : 7:17 AM

Maybe Franken knew back then that the Republicans were going to "fix" the machines this time to make sure that they lose.
Or am I the only one who harbors the suspicion that they "threw" this election?
God! Who would want to be in power during the oncoming catastrophe?

posted by

Peter of Lone Tree : 7:38 AM

Most good establishment 'liberals' knew they couldn't allege voting machine fraud without appearing to be unhinged conspiracy mongers. So many of them simply refused to go there.

However, Republicans appeared to have fought very hard to stay in power, and indeed, I think, McCain got as many or more votes as Bush did in his record-setting second run.

Even with the GOP in power at the DOJ, many Republicans have been convicted of crimes and sentenced to prison. That makes the prospect of a Democratically controlled DOJ quite worrisome to many GOP officeholders. Trying to get the best chance to avoid the sheriff is a powerful reason to attempt to stay in power, and I think they did that.

XIslander

posted by

Anonymous : 12:01 PM

Joe, do you know if there's viability in any of the COLB lawsuits now?

there's no viability to any of your imagined scandals about Obama. you're not better than all those morons who were peddling all these imaginary "facts" about the Clinton...

Franken believed, like many democrats leaders, that talking about election fraud would discourage voters from going to the polls. there's no irony behind that.

posted by

PUMA power : 12:28 PM

Poetic justice! You're right about Franken in 2004! Not unlike what happened to Kerry himself who started his campaign with "I have no time to cry in my teacup about stolen elections" That being said, I do like Franked far more than Kerry - especially since finding out that h=the party establishment is not crazy about him. So like you, I am rooting for his win.

posted by

Edgeoforever : 1:37 PM

Xislander said:
Most good establishment 'liberals' knew they couldn't allege voting machine fraud without appearing to be unhinged conspiracy mongers. So many of them simply refused to go there.

This makes sense.

I believe Al made a choice at that time not to get caught up in the controversy for political reasons.

That was around the time that Paul Wellstone died in the small plane crash, two weeks before he was to face Norm Coleman at the polls and Norm was not doing well. (Does this scenario sound familiar?)

Al and Paul were close friends for years and when Coleman won the election, Al made the decision to take back Paul's seat and carry on his work on education.

I sure hope he wins!

Rompadinker

posted by

Anonymous : 3:28 PM