Yurica Report in support of RFK article: A Vast Political Misfortune

[Helga Scow Stern]

http://www.yuricareport.com/Campaign2004/AVastPoliticalMisfortune.html

She writes delightfully, and knows right wing subversiveness and its intentions and tricks like the back of her hand:


A Vast Political Misfortune



Or Why Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is Correct in His Assessment
of the Late 2004 Election (which was sadly murdered by the G.O.P.,
may it rest in peace). And Why Salon.com’s Article Attacking Kennedy is Wrong.



By Katherine Yurica
June 11, 2006





It has been reported that Lysenko, the Soviet biologist, made
the following demonstration during a lecture: he put a flea on his desk and
said, "Jump!" Presently the flea jumped. He then removed the flea's hind legs
and said, "Jump!" again. This time the flea did not jump. "Observe,
gentlemen," said Lysenko: "This proves that when you remove the flea's hind
legs, its hearing is impaired.

Monroe Beardsley





If one is an old Ent, one does not like to be hasty. However, circumstances have a way of forcing themselves upon us and occasionally we are called upon to analyze something minutely, which nowadays goes against the grain, in as much as thinking, itself, is out of style. This latter fact is lamentable, but let us not tarry on it. Instead, let us go forward, analytically speaking.



On June 3, 2006 Farhad Manjoo, a 27 year old writer for Salon.com, penned a denunciation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s article, “Was the 2004 Election Stolen?” published by Rolling Stone. Mr. Manjoo mentioned that many major studies and analyses of the 2004 election existed, and then lamented that those studies were followed by “legions of activists, academics, bloggers and others who’ve devoted their post-Nov. 2 lives to unearthing every morsel of data that might suggest the vote was rigged.”



You can easily note that Mr. Manjoo and Salon.com are not in a generous mood in their essay. The very best of his ungracious statements is this one: “If you do read Kennedy’s article, be prepared to machete your way through numerous errors of interpretation and his deliberate omission of key bits of data.” Oh dear, Mr. Manjoo’s words are so, so violent—so uncharitable to the innocent sentences as well as to the guilty ones, if there are in fact any guilty ones at all. For starting with Mr. Manjoo’s very first assertion, which I admit was so convincing on the surface that the Yurica Report posted a warning to its readers to drive by with caution when reading and slow down to a crawl when passing Mr. Kennedy’s powerful imagery.



Alas, Mr. Manjoo and Salon.com make the mistake of holding Mr. Kennedy to the literal meaning of words and quotes, much like critics of the Bible do, but just as metaphors are not meant to be taken literally by the poets who penned them, statistics are not meant to be taken literally either. Numbers are metaphors that need interpretation (a fact Mr. Manjoo admits, but transgresses when he asks us to anoint him: “the Grand Interpreter!”)

more:

http://www.yuricareport.com/Campaign2004/AVastPoliticalMisfortune.html

[glitch]

1. This was an excellent rebuttal. Good to see posted again.

It was posted a few days ago, so in case you don't get many responses, don't feel bad!

[Helga Scow Stern]

3. Thanks, I hadn't seen it. n/t

[OnTheOtherHand]

2. why this is wrong

Yurica's example posits that equal proportions of newly registered Democrats and Republicans cast provisional ballots -- which will, of course, disadvantage Democrats if they have more new registrants. But the DNC report estimated provisional ballot rates for all Kerry and Bush voters (or rather, for Kerry and Bush voters in Cuyahoga).

Manjoo does leave out next steps. Given that there are more Democrats than Republicans in Cuyahoga (in fact, Kerry beat Bush more than 2:1), and that Kerry supporters' provisional ballots were counted at a lower rate than Bush supporters', we can roughly estimate that the 8100 uncounted PBs in Cuyahoga may've split about 3:1 for Kerry. That is about 4,000 net votes. Cuyahoga is the most Democratic county in Ohio, but if we nonetheless apply the same 3:1 ratio to all the uncounted PBs in the state, that nets maybe 17,000 or 18,000.

It's nice that Yurica doesn't cast Manjoo as an Enemy of the People.