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June 13, 2010

The Greene Miracle Needs an Explanation

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , — Bob Patterson @ 4:53 pm

For the conspiracy theory lunatics who believe that the Republicans use the (no paper trail) electronic voting machines to micromanage election results, explaining the miracle of Alvin Greene’s successful effort to become the Democratic Party’s nominee to run for the Senate from South Carolina was a routine “see we tried to warn you” variation of a fill in the blanks report from the “business as usual” file. No mystery for them. The expected winner, Vic Rawl, has called for an investigation of the results, according to Fox News.

For the mainstream media, where calmer heads prevail, it was a bit more of a challenge. Luckily someone (a Republican strategist with prepackaged spin at the ready?) came up with the explanation that since Greene came before the favorite on the alphabetically listed ballot, a tendency to pick the first name voters see (and this theory was based on what reputable scholarly research?) was offered to explain the Greene miracle.

That explanation was assumed to be not just good enough to explain the victory but also how the fellow got 60% of the vote. Did the explainers give three examples of that happening previously in South Carolina? Is it a well known political phenomenon and therefore not in need of any substantiation by the fact checkers working for media that relayed this bullshit with a straight face? Wait, if it’s Republican spin you don’t have to waste money on the fact checking process. Just send the hand-out to the typesetters with a staff generated headline.

Can anyone name one expert or study that substantiates the idea that alphabetical order could produce a lopsided election win of that magnitude?

The liberal media was only too happy to “report” the “alphabetical order” explanation because it relied on the cliché image of a dumb Southern shitkicker as voter and it also assumed that even college educated Americans in other sections of the country would accept the absurd explanation with out question or hesitation. And they did.

In the Preface to his1995 book “20 Years of Censored News,” Carl Jensen wrote: “Indeed the media-generated myth of the press as an aggressive, unbiased, honest watchdog of society is just that – a myth.”

Does anyone honestly believe that the alphabetical order crap explains a 60% of the vote win? If he really got that much of the vote, shouldn’t Democrats be planning how to help the guy beat his opponent rather than trying to get him replaced on the ballot? Doesn’t the Democrats’ “he doesn’t deserve the victory” attitude smack of elitism? Isn’t elitism “so yesterday”?

A vast number of red blooded patriotic Americans have believed that Bush was fairly elected twice, he didn’t know that there were no WMD’s, Gestapo questioning methods are OK if Americans use them, and a compassionate Christian conservative says “Tough shit” when folks’ unemployment checks are held up by budgetary concerns; so the alphabetical order explanation is not much of a stretch for them.

Many Americans also believe that it’s not right for a politician to lie about his military service, but if it’s a member of the Bush family and their military records vanish, that is OK.

Democrats, while Bush was serving as President, thought that Republicans were funding war crimes but now they won’t let their opinion of the Republicans even consider the possibility that GOP would manipulate voting results if they could. That’s too low even for Republicans. Heck, not even the Nazis tampered with election results . . . or did they?

Here’s another genius idea: did any of the big news organizations think to have an astrologer examine the results? Wouldn’t an astrologer’s pronouncement carry just as much gravitas as the expert opinion about the alphabetical order explanation? Who exactly was the source for that theory? Isn’t it just a theory until someone provides proof? Was the expert who came up with the goofy explanation the same expert who declared infallibly that Howard Dean had suffered a complete mental breakdown when he celebrated a primary elections victory?

When Democrats say something, reporters have to run out and get a college professor to confirm or deny the claim, but when it comes time to evaluate Republican spin, the reporters will just use a professorial tone of voice and let it go at face value.

Does anybody still believe in the old Jimmy Stewart movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”? The Teabaggers have tapped into the populist philosophy, but when the Democrats see a Horatio Alger style political victory, they don’t seem to really believe in the idea of an “against all odds idealist.” Wouldn’t St. Reagan find that a worth target for his Irish wit? Wouldn’t the Republican self made successes find this lack of faith in an individual’s efforts ludicrous?

Has anybody noticed how “explanations” inevitably lead to charges of lunatic ideas in action, and “unexplained phenomenon” is an almost weekly occurrence in the national news broadcasts? “Nothing to see here, move along!” (Time again to plug Ross Thomas’ book: “The fools in town are on our side!” just for the title.)

We don’t intend that this should be a CT column but where are the South Carolina Democrats’ astrological charts? Isn’t it time to demand that they be produced and made public?

The Washington Post attempted to elaborate all possible explanations, but they didn’t touch the astrological charts. See this:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/senate/explaining-alvin-greene.html?wprss=thefix

In his autobiography, famous con man Frank Abagnale wrote: “Almost any fault, sin, or crime is considered more leniently if there’s a touch of class involved.” Doesn’t the Greene Miracle have “class” written all over it? Or is that Karl Rove’s autograph?

Now, the disk jockey will play “The Chipmunks Song” (“ALVIN! ! !”), Al Green’s hit “Here I am (Come and Take Me), and “You Sexy Thing.” We gotta go over to the Cafepress website and start selling our trademarked “Senator Greene for President” t-shirts. Have a “Catch Me If You Can” type week.

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