Wesley Pruden's op/ed piece in the Washington Times is a punchy exposé of the stolen election to the U.S. Senate of Al Franken, "the dirty joke from Minnesota" who is dirty in more ways than one.A lot of the venal sins of Congress could be judged pornographic, both politically and otherwise, but we've never had an Official Senate Pornographer before. Sen. Chuck Schumer says Al Franken will fit right in.
"With the Minnesota recount complete," he says, gleefully, "it is now clear that Al Franken won the election." Actually, it isn't clear at all, as Mr. Schumer well knows, even though the Democrats managing the recount declared Mr. Franken the winner yesterday. The Democrats in the Senate are eager to get Al seated quickly because once he's seated among equals a bum is difficult to throw out. There's honor among senators, similar to the honor among thieves. (The difference is that thieves often hold to higher standards.)...
The post-election campaign in Minnesota to deprive Norman Coleman of his seat is remarkable for the way it was done in broad daylight, with everyone watching in a way not possible before the 24/7 glare of modern media.
The Minnesota secretary of state, Mark Ritchie, presided over the recount and it became clear quickly that the Democrats would do whatever was necessary to count Mr. Coleman out, stopping just short of borrowing votes from neighboring Wisconsin and Iowa. He was behind by 215 votes when the official counting stopped, and finished ahead by 225 votes when the recount was concluded. Nearly every dispute over procedure, evidence and judgment was resolved in Al's favor...
One member of the canvassing board, state Supreme Court Justice Barry Anderson, concedes that some ballots were likely counted twice, but he says there's not much anybody can do about it. In more than 25 precincts officials counted more ballots than voters; presumably we can put this down to the enthusiasm of high-minded Minnesotans to vote as often as they can. Everyone has a duty to vote, so who can scold a man or woman for going above and beyond the call of duty? Isn't that why Congress awards the Medal of Honor?
If Emerson was right, that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, the minds of the Democratic canvassers are big and wide, indeed. Officials in one precinct in Hennepin County lost 133 actual ballots during the recount; never mind, they decided, we'll just go with the election-night count. This gave Al 46 extra votes.
But in a Ramsey County precinct, canvassers found more ballots in the recount than precinct judges counted on election night. Oh, good, the canvassers concluded; we'll ignore election night and count the extra ballots. Al got an extra 37 votes. When it was time to count absentee ballots - nearly always the devil's favorite item in the details - and Al was still in the hole, the secretary of state insisted on counting enough ballots that had been set aside for reexamination to put Al up 176 votes...
"Minnesotans like to think that their state isn't like New Jersey or Louisiana," observes the Wall Street Journal, "and typically it isn't."
Well, maybe. But any Minnesotan who thinks that owes Tony Soprano and Carlos Marcello an apology. The Mafia hasn't stolen an election this brazenly since Sam Giancana bought Illinois for John F. Kennedy a half-century ago.
JustJoe comments on Pruden's article from Lucianne.com, "We haven't seen the low point yet. It's the 'direction' of things that is most troubling: a senate seat awarded to a Princess because of her name, a senate seat up for sale to the highest bidder, a senate seat stolen blatantly, in-your-face. These are downward steps on a long staircase that will be descended deeper by more thugs and clowns following this batch.
The Republicans are dead in the water. We can complain about the corruption of the Democrats, but they flex their muscles because of the weakness of the spineless Repubs. The only hope is a new Republican party taken over by Sarah and including some others like Jindal, or, if she is elbowed out -- what I hope for -- a brand new conservative party."
