a head of my own

This post by Michael pointed me to this article on The New York Times, which frankly was quite saddening.

A couple quotes:

[T]he simple truth: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."

Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.

I was speechless. I already knew it, but seeing it printed like that, like the truest of facts, hurts deeply. This is supposed to be America, the land of the free, the pillar of democracy, and we can't even expect our vote will count for something, anything.

But few Americans have heard these facts. Perhaps journalists have felt that it would be divisive to cast doubt on the Bush administration's legitimacy.

And for this the press should be forever ashamed. Michael Jackson might make you sell more ads, but where is your integrity as a journalist? No wonder people are growing less and less trustworthy towards the media.

And the most worrisome quote:

Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we've seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation.

Democrats right now have the excuse (truthful, I must admit) that they can't do much against Bush or the Republicans who commit crimes (Rove) or ethical violations (DeLay) because they don't control either house of Congress. I'm not so sure they would do anything even if they were in charge of one, but if they did, you can rest assured that many more scandals would come to light, and it would be disastrous for the Republicans and for the image of the US abroad.

Nevertheless, morality, justice, and ethics (not to speak of vengeance) would require them to expose the GOP's lies, crimes, and misdemeanors.

Unfortunately, having seen the Republicans in action in the past few election cycles, I don't really see how the Democrats, who are mostly spineless when it comes to frontal attacks, will be able to prevail, either in 06 or in 08.