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CityBeat has added Andrew Gumbel, the Los Angeles correspondent for The Independent in London. They are calling the column American Babylon; this week's first offering advises Kerry supporters who believe the election was stolen to give it a rest.
Okay, deep breath, and repeat after me: George Bush won the election. George Bush won fair and square. He won in Ohio. He won in Florida. And he carried the national popular vote by a margin of well over three million. He may be a bum, a bozo, a corporate shill, a reckless bomb-thrower or any of the other things his opponents like to call him, but the brute fact is that he’s the guy a clear majority of voters picked to lead the free(-ish) world for the next four years....If the goal is to mount an effective opposition to the Bush administration, the stolen election psychosis can only be a distraction to the main task at hand, which is finding a compelling political message to mobilize public opinion and reverse the ever-rising Republican tide.
Making wild accusations about vote fraud also risks discrediting the entire movement for electoral integrity at a time when it is needed most.
He goes on to pick apart the evidence of irregularities and anomalies in Ohio and Florida. He has credibility to do so: he is writing a book about the dysfunctions of the U.S. electoral system, Steal the Vote, for Nation Books. His column will run monthly until he finishes.