Quintuple Bogey
By Mitch Berg
Yesterday, in conceding that Al Franken is going to be the next (puke a little in my mouth) Senator from Minnesota, the Minnesota GOP sent out a press release:
St. Paul- Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman-elect Tony Sutton today issued the following statement regarding the Minnesota Supreme Court’s ruling in the U.S. Senate race.
“Today’s ruling wrongly disenfranchised thousands of Minnesotans who deserve to have their votes counted. Alongside Senator Coleman, the Republican Party of Minnesota has fought to make sure every vote counts and all voters are treated fairly and uniformly. As we move forward, our deeply flawed election system must be dramatically improved to ensure our state’s elections are fair, accurate and reliable.” (Republican Party of Minnesota)
This election does bring up a slew of questions: how did we wind up with a 500 vote swing over the course of eight months? Why do we have ballots being counted several times (according to at least one SCOM justice) while we’re not entirely sure every ballot was rightfully counted once? Why does our state have different recount standards in every county? Why did every single question about the recount process break in Franken’s favor?
And the big one – can more than about 1% even come close to explaining what just happened? I’ll allow for the fact that 43% of Minnesotans got what they wanted, and many of them wouldn’t care if it came by ballot or by decree, but I’d like to think this state could hope for better.
“Two-Putt Tommy”, a fairly generic anonymous leftyblogger writing at Minnesota Tragedy of Spyrochaetal Paresis “Progressive” Project (a blog that actively recruits liars and distributes 9/11 conspiracy theories), brought what every anonymous leftyblogger brings to the issue: Mthe sort of classy analysis that makes one thing “I’m so glad his vote counts the same as mine”:
Incredible. At the same time Norm Coleman played the “gracious concession” act, the State Republican Party showed their true colors with their official press release:In other words, “Norm wuz robbed.”
Well, actually “Minnesotans who believe Minnesotans should understand and have justified confidence in their election system were robbed”.
That’s the way the state GOP Party was under former Chairman Ron Carey; that’s the way it will remain under new Chairman Tony Sutton.
Catch that?
A guy who spent the last eight years chanting “Bush was selected, not elected!” is yapping about other peoples’ questions about an election that, over the last eight months, might have struck one as “contentious”.
The DFL may achieve a “classless society”, but probably not in the way they intended.
UPDATE: In a phone conversation on Monday, Mr. Tommy denied having ever said that Bush was “Selected, Not Elected”. While I was writing more broadly – many of Mr. Tommy’s fellow-travellers and blog-mades certainly did, and do – my sentence as written implies that he has personally made that claim. Since I have no objective evidence that he did, I regret the ambiguity.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
From: http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0185.shtml
According to the Air Force Safety Center, the lifetime Class A accident rate for the F-102 was 13.69 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours, and the rate was especially high during the early years of the plane’s service.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Also from the same source:
Regardless, the F-102 was still far more dangerous to fly than today’s combat aircraft. Compared to the F-102’s lifetime accident rate of 13.69, today’s planes generally average around 4 mishaps per 100,000 hours. For example, compare the F-16 at 4.14, the F-15 at 2.47, the F-117 at 4.07, the S-3 at 2.6, and the F-18 at 4.9. Even the Marine Corps’ AV-8B, regarded as the most dangerous aircraft in US service today, has a lifetime accident rate of only 11.44 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours. The F-102 claimed the lives of many pilots, including a number stationed at Ellington during Bush’s tenure. Of the 875 F-102A production models that entered service, 259 were lost in accidents that killed 70 Air Force and ANG pilots.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Loren informed: “Of the 875 F-102A production models that entered service, 259 were lost in accidents that killed 70 Air Force and ANG pilots.”
And it turns out only 300 of those aircraft were piloted by Lt. G.W. Bush.
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Yep, Angry Clown, and Obama isn’t in charge of the treasury. Geithner is. He isn’t in charge of foreign policy, that’s Hillary Clinton’s kuliana. Obama isn’t in charge of the military, Gates is. Poor fella isn’t even in charge of his own staff, Rahm Emmanuel is.
But then, I hear you think that Missouri was a confederate state, which would have come as a surprise to Lincoln — the slaves there weren’t covered under the emancipation proclamation.
You got nuthin, punk.
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:30 am
That’s “kuleana,” Hawai`i boy.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
UPDATE: In a phone conversation, “Two-Putt” denied having claimed to have been a combat veteran.
September 1st, 2011 at 7:40 am
[…] Most everyone thought Norm Coleman’s concession speech was gracious and classy. There were some risible exceptions (see previous)… […]