I found it remarkable that on election night and the morning after, that pretty much each and every network that I watched, CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CBS... each engaged in handwringing and wondered aloud "How could our exit polls have been so wrong?"  And they each came up with the same answer which I've heard over and over again:  the early exit polls showing Kerry with a 3 point lead were somehow released to the internet and we all read the internet and the liberals sat back on their laurels and did not vote; and the conservatives began panicking and worked harder.   

Does anyone really believe that?  Really?  It sounds like a line that senior editors made up as plausible so they could duck and run from the truth:  either that exit polling is a total sham; or that the exit polls were absolutely correct, and its corollary truth, that enough  electronic voting machines in Ohio and Florida were hacked into or just plain pre-programmed to count the blips in a not so kosher way.   

Friends in Florida tell me that machines in their locations were taken out of service after it was discovered that Kerry votes were being registered for Bush votes.  Do not forget this is the state whose chief election official four years ago purged tens of thousands of Democrats from the registration rolls because they had names similar to convicted felons; and consequently it is estimated that some 25,000 Democrats were turned away from the polls in 2000.  

Then one wonders about Ohio and its ties with the Diebold company which manufactures electronic voting machines.  As the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on August 28, 2003,  Diebold CEO Walden "Wally" O'Dell wrote a letter to the GOP dated August 14, 2003 stating that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."   He and Diebold contributed 6 figures to the President's re-election campaign as I understand. How is it appropriate that the guy who programs the voting machines gets to be so partisan one way or the other?  This gentleman has millions of dollars riding on his relationship with the Republicans and he's counting the votes?   

I don't know for sure that fraud has been committed, but the fact that Diebold says it cannot create a machine with a paper trail bothers me every time I take a receipt from my ATM machine.  

Do these matters concern anyone but me?    Why is no one talking about them?  Are CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and the major newspapers -- Molly - going to roll over and give another free pass to this Administration? 

  Are there any good, honest and committed investigative reporters in American journalism anymore?

  Hello?  Is anybody home, America?