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Nothing to fear except the news itself

Published Monday, September 13, 2004 by seanlmccarthy | E-mail this post

Much of the media buzz today is on the end of the decade-long assault weapons ban, but for my money, the scarier story in today's New York Times involves the fraudulent use of absentee votes. Annie will always get her gun, so to speak, just as "soft money" always will find its way into election fund-raising and rich people will exploit the justice system and the tax loopholes. Those all things to be railed against, to be sure. But fixing an election? That I haven't seen, since, oh, I don't know, 2000? Yeah, yeah. Sour grapes, my eye. You know the stink will stay on that skunk of a presidential campaign until the history books write it out as a footnote alongside the election of 1876.

Appropriate proverb of the day: Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.