Robert F Kennedy Jr, Rolling Stone, Kerry

ROLLING STUNT

With "Stolen Election" Push, RFK Jr Courts Extremists





Question: at your local newsstand, when was the last time you picked up a copy of Rolling Stone?

Has it been years? Decades? A century?

Exactly how old are you, anyway?

As the rock publication struggles desperately to regain its long- lost relevancy, it has latched on to the extremist politics of Air America Radio host Robert F Kennedy, Jr.

In a piece that during an election year is sure to drive Democrat Party leaders batty, Kennedy resurrects widely- discredited conspiracy theories surrounding the "stolen" 2004 presidential contest.

Again rehashing allegations of voter intimidation in Ohio and claiming that exit polls told the real election night story, Kennedy almost defensively goes out of his way to cite a huge number of "sources".

From the essay:

Like many Americans, I spent the evening of the 2004 election watching the returns on television and wondering how the exit polls, which predicted an overwhelming victory for John Kerry, had gotten it so wrong. By midnight, the official tallies showed a decisive lead for George Bush -- and the next day, lacking enough legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded.

Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush's victory as nut cases in ''tinfoil hats,'' while the national media, with few exceptions, did little to question the validity of the election. The Washington Post immediately dismissed allegations of fraud as ''conspiracy theories,''(1) and The New York Times declared that ''there is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale.''(2)

But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad(3) never received their ballots -- or received them too late to vote(4) -- after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations.(5) A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states,(6) was discovered shredding Democratic registrations.(7) In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes,(8) malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots.(9) Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment -- roughly one for every 100 cast.(10)

With Democrats feeling strongly that the GOP is in trouble this year, they need a dose of this fringe kookdom about as much as another loud scream from Howard Dean would aid November's outcome.

Worst of all, there's really very little here that hasn't already been pushed, ad nauseum, by this crowd for the last 18 months. Especially laughable: that RFK Jr's work was aided by a "Rolling Stone investigation".

Who exactly were these "investigators"? In a haze of smoke, did they stumble out of a Phish concert?

And get a load of some of their fringe partisan "sources":

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

Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? : Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count by Steve Freeman, Joel Bleifuss

How the GOP Stole America's 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008 by Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman

Of course, this is the same "environmentalist" Kennedy who opposes the Cape Cod wind farm plan because it's visible from the family compound in Hyannis and the "anti-corporate fraud" Kennedy who refuses to speak out against corruption originating with his own employer, Air America Radio.

If Robert isn't running for office, what's this all about? Your Radio Equalizer believes that by boosting his public profile, Kennedy can command even larger fees from the universities and other leftist organizations that routinely book him for speeches.

Almost without end, Kennedy seems to be on the road delivering his fiery rhetoric to unquestioning "progressives".

For Republicans, the best course of action is to encourage Kennedy to keep pushing these crazy theories. The public backlash alone ought to restore at least 10 points to Bush's approval ratings, something sorely needed at the moment.


Meanwhile, the blogosphere is buzzing over this piece. Look for insight at Riehl World View, Hot Air and memeorandum, as well as lefty praise from DU, Fact-esque and Air America Radio's website.

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Top RFK photo: Boston Herald library picture