No one is saying there were not errors or ballots counted twice, this is not denied even by the Franken camps and will be heard in court, but your charges of ballot election officials’ corruption is simply silly and petty beyond belief.

I’m sure, however, in Gary Larson’s Far Sided little world, however, accusing an entire state’s recount committee of corruption (while the proceedings were televised) makes perfect sense.

I’m sure both our Republican Gov. and Democrat Sec. of State were in on it too. Maybe you can get an advance from Bob Woodward for telling your story. Let’s see, I’m thinking of another nickname than “deep throat”…

By the way, Jesse Ventura was the rare incredibly honest man who actually got elected in politics and a close friend of Ron Paul. We would be incredibly lucky to get either of them to run for president in 2012. But if your standards of excellence are Coleman, I’m sure you’re probably still fantasizing about Palin’s skirts.

Closet liberals often hang out (why I am not certain, self-flagellation?) at conservative and libertarian websites, frequently venting their hostility toward their prime enemy, dastardly “Rs,” in comment threads.

In doing so they expose their political beliefs and sometimes, a clueless nature and their artful fact-twisting skills.

It must make them feel better, or something, to get their whacks in, so covertly, on “Rs” and libertarians.

To “minnesotamama” (comment at the top) I would suggest:

– Get a life.

– Get a grip on reality.

– Get acquainted with facts, don’t rely on “Dem” talking points.

– Tolerate others’ opinions if different than yours.

– Forgo hysterics and histrionics. They’re unbecoming.

– Learn to spell. (Spellcheck is a marvel in that regard.)

– Stop masquerading as a conservative. It’s very transparent.

– And for heaven’s sakes, we KNOW you despise Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN). Okay? No need to repeat it LOUDLY while stomping your feet like a little kid.

Is it something in the water way up there in Minnesota? Just think: 1.2 million-plus voted for the ex-pornographer Al Franken. Does that reflect any sense of dignity, or common sense, or respect for the office?

First they elected Jesse “The Body” Ventura, then feckless Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN), and now, maybe, a Stuart Smalley? Whew!

How much lunacy is enough up there in cold-ass country?

What’s at issue, however, in this case, is not who you might like for public office, but the integrity of the voting process itself, the very sanctity of the ballot box. No dirty tricks, please.

Whether you despise Norm Coleman, or idolize the late Paul Wellstone, or suggest Franken is (God forbid!) a good little conservative, does not matter a tinker’s damn.

Facts are best ignored, I suppose, if you favor the outrageous Franken and put down pro-life Coleman, who was endorsed by every major Minnesota newspaper. But facts, being stubborn things, some foreign to raving “mama,” need to be brought to the table, not liberal spin moves.

To wit: Double-counted ballots do matter, as do more votes recorded than ballots cast. These are not trivial things. Then there’s the fact “corrections” to the final tally came in overwhelmingly, out of all proportion statistically, for Franken. Not to mention the pre-election funny stuff, and the bizarre nature of all the “legal wrangling” falling in favor of the Democrat. Doesn’t that raise just a tiny red flag of suspicion? To party wonks such as “mama,” apparently not.

Shibboleths invoked as “facts” — such as a wild-eyed contention that Wellstone’s aircraft crashed “mysteriously,” or that partisanship did not stick its nose into this Coleman-Franken race – are ludicrous, almost laughable. Nothing “underhanded” about the crash. One could check it out with the NTSB. The plane stalled, probably pilot error. Simple tragedy. No conspiracy there.

Many true liberals—friends of mine—hang their heads in heartfelt shame over Al the Ex-Pornographer’s “win,” if he did. Most of them voted for Barkley, the third man in the race. One “held his nose” and voted for Al, not thinking he’d win.

Snotty, redundant “mama” would have us believe (seriously!) that Wellstone was hailed by Republicans as an icon and Franken is a fan of conservatism. Hey, it doesn’t get more wackier, upside down, than that.

Frankly, readers, I don’t usually stoop to address such silly knee-jerk responses from readers. Their problems are theirs, not mine. Besides, life is too short. Rational discussion is all but impossible with the wild-eyed who have All the Answers.

As a mostly liberal newspaper editor once, before I saw the light of Russell Kirk, I discovered first-hand liberals’ denials of reality. Saucy ignorance was on display, too, in their letters to my op-ed pages, and their bristling phone calls to my desk. “Is that so?,” I would ask, trying to calm them down, focus on facts. Not easy for some to do.

I sought factual bases for the allegations, the spin. Then I’d hear them recite the “party line,” a stream of talking points, not facts. (To be fair, this was often the case also with letter writers and callers from the Far Right, too. Pity them both.)

Often letters were simply restatements of the liberal orthodoxy, not a lot of thinking involved. They tended to amuse before getting placed in our File 13. We’d post some on the office bulletin board, especially those written in color crayon, just for fun. Liberals’ letters predominated.

Rare but welcome was the letter from a committed, thoughtful adult liberal that made sense. Those got ink in my newspaper, gladly, and hoorays from yours truly for advancing intelligent discussion of public issues.

Such a scuzzy allegation as the crash short of the runway north of Duluth is an example of what passes for shady “reality” on the left. Shameful, yes, but what we come to expect of the disingenuous, or the simply clueless.

Some would revise—that is, deny–history by saying Wellstone was a shoo-in in 2002. He wasn’t. Running for a third term, which he promised never to do, he trailed Coleman by up to six percentage points in the polls. Democrats in Minnesota put up their Biggest Gun to take down Coleman–Walter Mondale. It didn’t work. Mondale made up some ground, losing 50 to 47% to pro-life Coleman. A memorial service-turned-political pep rally at a public auditorium at my alma mater (U of MN) hatefully excoriated Republicans, and sealed the deal for Coleman. Bad manners, and hate, did in the Democrats.

“….the whole piece, lacks data,” claims “mama” about my article. But “mama” ignores my primary, factual theses in her zeal to take down Coleman in a hissy fit. (Can “mama” read?) Facts are hard to ignore, but ignored they are, especially by closet liberals rooting for Franken and making up allegations about the Wellstone crash.

Disingenuous “mama” (or perhaps, it’s merely ignorance showing?) falsely claims that I said the current difference in the vote (225 up for Franken) “…was entirely made from felons and election officers…” That’s not true. Look again. I did NOT say what she says I said. In truth I cited a combination of factors for Franken’s improbable win” up there in her wacky-tacky Minnesota. See how the left tilts reality?

“Shame on IC for posting such malarky,” [sic] tut-tuts “mama,” taking Intellectual Conservative to task. With that in mind, I do hope myopic “mama” skips Part 2 of my How Al Franken Won in Minnesota…If He Did.” You see, the facts, let along distaff opinion, are burdensome things to the liberal class. Reading my Part 2 would likely give intolerant, fact-dissing “mama” a case of apoplexy. Growing up, it’s so hard to do.

– Gary Larson

You’re talking about recounted ballots, the poster you’re responding to is talking about discovered ballots. I can see it’s extremely difficult for you to pick just one topic to rant about at a time, but try to focus.

We heard you the first time. Saying the same thing a lot of times, or really loudly, or with a lot of passion doesn’t make it any more or less persuasive or relevant.

Since the only thing in your entire inane rant that had anything remotely to do with what I posted was in reference to statistics, let me explain. In counties that went for Al Franken, corrected and “discovered” votes went to Al Franken by a margin far larger than the original vote, and disproportionaly to corrections made for other offices. The amount by which “corrections” favored one candidate was certainly not impossible, but improbable given the initial vote. Those corrections occured before the recount took place and narrowed the initial Coleman lead from 725 to 206. The recount then gave Franken 431 more votes to put him ahead of Coleman. Coincidentally, the Coleman legal team also lost all 6 of its legal challenges during before and during the recount with every decision going in favor of Franken’s lawyers. Oh, and 25 precincts in Minnesota have more votes than voters. Here’s a piece discussing some of the inconsistencies: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123111967642552909.html ; just more groundless speculation, I’m sure.

>>> Simply not correct. No matter how much you and other may want that to be the reality, it is not. The math speaks for itself.

Coleman DID SEE HIS NUMBERS INCREASE, exactly “at a much smaller ratio than Franken.”

http://ww2.startribune.com/news/metro/elections/returns/2008/recount/msenco.html

To simplify this source, there are these colored squares that represent each candidate. See all those little red squares? Those are COUNTIES WHERE COLEMAN LED in recounts.

It has nothing to do with his politics per se, it has to do whether the people who voted for each candidate are being properly represented. Just because YOU don’t like Coleman, doesn’t mean the people who voted for him should be disregarded, nor should your vote be counted twice.

Election officials or politicians didn’t overstep their bounds because they worked their way through the election laws. Just like Sarah Palin didn’t overstep her bounds when she fired Monegan as Public Safety Commissioner, since it was completely legal of her to do so.

What is under suspicion, if not so much the motive of the officials, is the results of these new votes. If Coleman would have also seen his numbers increase, but at a much smaller ratio than Franken, it could have still been fraud, but a more believable one. How every new vote goes to one candidate is just ridiculously flagrant.

And before you start throwing Florida under the bus, the issue wasn’t about new votes magically appearing and whether those votes should count. The issue was, during the recount, whether improperly punched ballots should be counted, and how so. It was much more ambiguous, vote counts changed for both sides, and in the end, after post-election recounts were made, they vindicated the election results. This mess was mainly started because the media, in their infinite wisdom, gave Florida to Gore before actually counting the votes.

Seriously, did this guy just run “super duper” through synonyms.com and pull out whatever came up to cram into 2 paragraphs? There’s absolutely no even attempted citations for this worship.

Franken, is “inferior intellectually, hate-filled, angry, demagogic…” blah, blah, blah.

REALITY check here. NEITHER party is perfect. Coleman had awful polling and made catastrophic decision while in Senate including support of the bailout and some rather bad ones while mayor of St. Paul as well. Al Franken has made some poor decisions- bending ridiculously to unions, etc. and some good ones- rejecting the bailout. Coleman would never have been elected in the first place had Paul Wellstone not died, Wellstone had incredibly high popularity polling in Minnesota.

So this whole blog is just a junior high level work of hate and love and no objectivity.

To say that Minnesotans are celebrity struck is ridiculous – many of them never liked Coleman in the first place. What little love was there was tarnished for many by his poor decisions and numerous scandals. Besides, there is nothing wrong with celebrities using their influence to cross over to politics. Reagan did it in California, also with little experience, and Schwarzenegger did it there again, with even less experience in a special recount election. Other individuals also cross over to politics: Pastors, Soccer moms, etc. So come on… this blogger has nothing… he just doesn’t LIKE Al Franken… so anyone who does or is sick of Coleman is “intellectually inferior” to his elementary wisdom.

Back to Minnesota. It’s absolutely shameless and unlogical to compare Minnesota to Florida voting: We have consistent paper voting. We do not use Diebold, except in scanning. All paper is kept, even beyond the auditing process. That’s why the recount IS able to be so accurate. And Chicago style? Please. Are we actually accusing people of organized crime in Minnesota??!! Come on. There is no grounds for ANY of these allegations. That’s REALITY.

Yes, there were questionable ballots here and there, such as the “Lizard People” ballot, but this is what the courts will debate. Franken is not even seated yet. Coleman has a right to be heard in court just like Franken had a right to the recount in the first place. Although even with the numbers of the disputed ballots, Franken is still ahead. You can’t possibly question the statistics here. The whole count was within hundreds of voters in Nov. and it still is in Jan. Obviously, it is a close race.

Recounts have always been required in races with a margin of less than 1% in MN unless the defeated GIVES UP this right. There is little interpretation to this law that allows for any partisanship, it’s simply a mathematical reality. Franken has requested of Pawlenty (Rep) and Ritchie (Dem) to be seated officially. NEITHER has granted him this.

Coleman’s rights have not been infringed upon, he is free to state his case to the court.

I have not heard of a SINGLE, SPECIFIC CASE where Minnesota election officials or politicians have overstepped their bounds regarding Franken/Coleman. NAME ONE. Or admit it is all groundless speculation.

His plane went down mysteriously less than 2 weeks away from the election and Coleman was elected by default. I can certainly say that that “election” had much more underhandedness to it than this one.

I assumed that by “mysterious” and “underhanded” you meant to imply that the circumstances surrounding the plane crash were caused by something other than chance or happenstance. My mistake.

I don’t know why from my three sentence post you got the impression that I didn’t believe that Minnesota had existing election laws, or how you extrapolated from that imagined position that I am a conspiracy theorist. Minnesota election law is interpreted and applied by Minnesota judges and the Minnesota state canvassing board, and overseen by the partisan state attorney general. The decisions that have been made by Minnesota judges and the state canvassing board (regarding ballot disputes, ballot counting, and ballot discoveries) in this election have overwhelmingly come down to the favor of the Al Franken campaign. The number of ballot corrections in favor of Franken has been statistically improbable given the original vote totals for the candidates. That’s just how it went. What that does or does not imply about your state is irrelevent — it’s reality. Ongoing disputes about these issues are why Al Franken’s motions to dismiss Coleman’s challenges were denied, and why he consequently hasn’t been certified the winner or seated by the majority-Democrat senate yet. If there were no irregularities or remaining disputable issues here, the election would be over now.

Norm Coleman’s party or ideology or voting history isn’t at issue, the election is.

I did not say Norm Coleman had ANYTHING to do with Wellstone’s death. There is nothing to indicate that. However, the deck was inappropriately stacked in Coleman’s favor in that particular election. It was the election I referred to, not the death. Moving on…

To criticize something I did not even imply as “conspiracy theory” and then fail to realize you are yourself a conspiracy theorist must take some ability on your part. Minnesota ALREADY HAS HAD recount laws on its books for decades. As this election was within hundreds, clearly it met that criteria. To say that the politics had anything to do with that is ridiculous. Al Franken simply took advantage of EXISTING election law. There was ABSOLUTELY NO special favors bestowed on him. Furthermore, the entire recount process was highly transparent and even televised. Anyone could have watched the proceedings. To imply that Minnesota officials acted without impartiality is completely unfounded and a shameless charge.

The point here is not that Al Franken is above question or that he is somehow an embodiment of conservative principles but rather that Norm Coleman is no saint whatsoever and does not embody conservative principles either. Being Republican has 0% to do with it, his voting record speaks for itself. Like I pointed out in my commentary, there is a REASON why 15% of voters chose a 3rd party candidate who wasn’t even endorsed by his own party. Polls have been done on those voters and well over half identified as Republicans disgusted with Coleman and his scandals.

It’s been a while, so let’s rock on…

John Hawkins asked on Twitter this morning how he can “better find outstanding posts from small, lightly read, conservative/libertarian bloggers to link”. I can’t say……