MONDAY'S LETTERS: RFK Jr.'s 'Stolen Election', Coulter's Double Vote, the Press and the Haditha Massacre

By: E&P Staff In today's letters, readers agree and disagree with Greg Mitchell's essay on the press and the Haditha massacre in Iraq, some reaction to RFK Jr.'s charge that the 2004 election was stolen and the push to prosecute Ann Coulter for voting twice in the election.


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RFK Jr. Essay on Stolen Election Hypocritical?

Thanks for the posting, apparently with a straight face, of notice of the forthcoming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expose of the above "stolen" election. The down-ballot results in 2004 would suggest that it was not, in fact, a Democratic year. This would be in contrast to, say, 1960, when Democrats lost ground in the House and the Senate, but mysteriously eked out a narrow, funny-smelling victory at the top of the ticket.

Next up: an investigation by RFK Jr. on wiretapping of black leaders by Bush's Justice Department, perhaps? An essay alleging narcotics use by the Bush daughters? A commentary on reckless operation of dangerous vehicles on the part of politically well-connected Republican politicians and their children, causing injury or death to innocent passengers, with the perpetrators getting slaps on the wrist? The Kennedys are starting to get difficult to satirize or parody, though the people who still take them seriously continue to be, for the undeserving Republicans, a gift that keeps on giving.

Mark Richard
Columbus, Ohio



... When the press figured that stories about Bush's National Guard (non)service were termed 'old', and then when the election was obviously stolen, the press did one joint investigation which found it WAS stolen, and did one story on it ...

And Iraq. OMG, Iraq. How the press dropped the ball and actually CHEERLEADED for a war to start. Unreal, yes? Orwellian? Of course. But the press added fuel to the fire every chance they could. The NYT said they were sorry. Thanks.

2004 election. Stolen again. Exit polls are never, ever that far off, and when they are, it is indicative of fraud. Did the press investigate? Rove, Libby, Colbert, NSA prisons and wiretaps, the list goes on and on.

These are the reasons I'm buying a boat and spending the rest of my life floating around the world. This country has been sold to the highest bidders and there is no hope of coming back. And the press's abject failure in it's responsibilty to inform our democracy is what killed it.

When you ponder about why the press dropped the ball on Haditha, ask yourself also how the press let the republican party steal two elections and enter a war that we didn't need. I think you will find your answer. Thanks for *trying* to not be part of the problem, but until the press owns up to failing democracy back in 2000, the healing will never begin.

Byron York



I am appalled by the accounting of corrupt and devious conduct by Ohio officials in the 2004 election. I expect news outlets to FINALLY give this story A LOT of coverage and discussion. I want those ballots in Ohio put under a court order and GUARDED! Let's put some fresh batteries in the smoke detectors and check that they're above grade level in case there's a sudden flood, and let's make sure Blackwell doesn't start booking any trips to countries with non-extradition treaty status.

S. Hathaway


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On Mitchell's Charge That the Press Was Slow on Haditha

A British friend (Harrow, Sandhurst, 19th Hussars) whose son (also a Sandhurst grad) returns from 2nd posting to Iraq with the 19th told us today that BBC ... carried a report showing a US soldier (marine?) lighting a cigarette from the burning skin of an Iraqi. His son is headed for Afghanistan where Taliban lawlessness (or rather, control of the country) is on the upswing. My British friend wondered whether the Taliban weren't out to stage of repeat of routing the British as they had done was it a couple of centuries ago?

U.S. viewers have also been treated to earlier videos showing wounded civilians crawling away from burning cars or cabs, being shot apparently from helicopters. This goes back quite a while -- so had things changed? Had any U.S. media the gumption to check out what really was going on? ...

That lawlessness is rampant is testified to also by the story today about hijacked fuel being a thriving business, and the shooting of taxi or bus passengers in cold blood by unidentified assailants. This would be a reasonable contradiction to statements that Iraqi security forces are on the ascendancy, and that conditions don't cease improving.

First Amendment rights there may still be (diminishing day by day), but unless exercised, they become meaningless.

Tony Pell
(once upon a time desk chief, AFP, and reporter, CBS News, Paris)



You make far too many assumptions in your article about atrocities and the killing of innocent civilians. Like the recent article in the Los Angeles Times where unknown Iraqi reporters interviewed Iraqis whose reporting and comments were accepted uncritically, your article accepts on faith that atrocities were committed.

I wonder if you would be reporting or commenting this way in WWII, where American troops also committed atrocities, killed unarmed civilians and enemy soldiers who had surrendered? I wonder if soldiers and Marines have the presumption of innocence that you seem to afford those who are likely to be enemies?

It is established fact that in order to become a physician in Saddam's Iraq, one had to be a member of the Baathist Party and more than likely a member of the Sunni minority that ruled Iraq. As witnesses, their claims are Gospel?

It makes this Vietnam veteran, who remembers the victory of American and South Vietnamese forces over the communists during Tet of 1968 being turned into a defeat for us by the press, wonder if the press is actually concerned with the truth! Ever the vigilantes, the press (correctly) unveiled the My Lai massacre, but also ignored the mass slaughter of innocents, teachers, politicians, women and children by the communists at Hue. The same press that ignored the bombing of the very people we were trying to protect in Bosnia because we bombed from 10,000 feet and couldn't identify the targets properly. That likely because a president who once claimed to loathe the military didn't have the moral authority to risk the lives of pilots to get closer?

Of course, if you get all your information from interviewing anti-war veterans and others who may be opposed to the deposing of a bloody dictator and fail to write anything positive about the difficult job of establishing a democracy in Iraq, then I can't blame you for writing such things.

Certainly it is fitting to worry about the rights of those in Abu Ghraib, but then couldn't you apply the same concern about American troops who are accused of murder?

H. Michael Sarkisian


... I am glad to see that you tune into Democracy Now.

I have two significant words for you: Seymour Hirsch. He has been reporting on this kind of story for a long time.

He has appeared on Democracy Now and predicted that these kinds of stories would eventually surface in MSM.

Keep your ear to the ground and keep tuning in to Democracy Now, Amy Goodman is an ace reporter, fantastic investigative journalist with guts and is a veteran of gunshots in East Timor when she reported on the atrocities there. Democracy SCOOPS the MSM by YEARS on stories.

Then MSM comes a few years later with a watered down, weak version of the original story. It has happened that way time and time again; I know, because I've listened to Democracy Now since 1988.

Trudy Kretschmer
Santa Cruz, Calif.


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Coultergeist

Hey Good luck with nailing Coulter on that vote fraud thing. Here in Tulsa, Okla., we have a newly elected mayor who, according to voting records in both Tulsa and Florida, voted twice for Gore in 2000. It was a major issue in the campaign and it did not stick here. She never specifically denied doing it, but the statue of limitations had expired so no charges were filed in Florida or Oklahoma. Check it out: her name is Kathy Taylor, she's a Democrat. ...

Pete Eichenberger
Tulsa, Okla.