Kerry says "I wuz robbed"

Drop everything and go directly to Democracy Now. Today, host Amy Goodman devotes much of her program to Mark Crispin Miller's new book "Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too."

Here's the jaw-dropping quote from Miller:

[Kerry] told me he now thinks the election was stolen. He says he doesn't believe he is the person that can be out in front because of the sour grapes question. But he said he believes it was stolen. He says he argues with his democratic colleagues on the hill. He said he had a fight with Christopher Dodd because he said there's questions about the voting machines and Dodd was angry.

I'm a Kerry fan -- always have been, since before most of you heard of him. But the man has little or no chance to become the Democratic nominee again. Best, I say, for him to speak his piece and say it loud. Publicize the issue of vote fraud. Screw Christopher Dodd and screw the right-wing smear artists.

And before some of you use the comments section to play the game of Let's Kick Kerry, let me give you a reminder: Traditionally, when Republicans lose, they blame the opposition; when Democrats lose, they blame their own candidates. Change that whining, self-defeating tradition and we may start winning more elections.

In another segment of the same program, Professor Miller also mixes it up with Mark Hertsgaard on the subject of vote fraud; a partial transcript of the debate is already up. I generally admire Hertsgaard, but he's all wrong in this case:

But there's a difference between something being suspicious and it definitely being the case. For example, one of the things that is constantly offered in Ohio is this idea that in Warren County that there was a supposed lockdown on election night of the building where the votes were being counted and that this was defended by a supposed terrorist threat and that the F.B.I. then denied that any such threat had been given. And there's some truth to that story, but not as much as is said in the Conyers Report. Yes, the F.B.I. denied any such terrorist threat. Yes, the county did say that originally. But it is not true that those votes were then counted in secret. Those votes were counted in front of both the Democratic and the Republican election board supervisors, as is always the case. And the only -- according to people on both sides of that, the only person who was supposedly locked out of that counting was the reporter from the Cincinnati Enquirer who later wrote the story, and rightly or wrongly, in Warren County reporters have never been allowed into the counting room.

Hertzgaard ignores the fact that this supposedly-spontaneous lockout was planned weeks in advance. The uncontested fact of deception gives us all the proof we need that sinister doings were afoot. As Peter Dale Scott used to say, cover-up obviates conspiracy.

Fortunately, Miller is far less naive:

Now, I found stuff in writing Fooled Again that the Conyers people didn't go over. I talked to some people who worked in Ohio and have documentary evidence that some 10 to 20% of all the hard line Democratic voters in their precincts just disappeared from the rolls. I have all the details in the book, but it was systematic.

We should have a dozen more books of this sort lined up on the shelves, their titles staring like inescapable accusations at anyone who wanders into any major book store. Suggestion: Call your local Barnes & Noble and ask if they have copies of Fooled Again by Mark Crispin Miller. If you hear a no, don't wait for the "I can order it for you" spiel. Just say "I'll go elsewhere" and hang up. If a store receives ten calls of that sort, the manager will know what to do.

Library copies are even more important, and the buyers for libraries do take suggestions. Call your local librarian to learn more.