Subject: If Peggy Noonan Had An Honest Editor

I had a dream.  I dreamed that there was an honest editor at the Wall Street Journal,
who looked at Peggy "Porpoise" Noonan's latest column when it was submitted for publication.
Here are some of the more questionable parts of Peggy's column -- most of it, that is
-- with the dream editor's comments in [black:]

The state's votes were counted. At the end it was close, but George W. Bush won.

     [You mean, "George W. Bush was ahead at the end of the first, and
inaccurate, count."  We know the first count was inaccurate because most of
Governor Bush's lead disappeared after the machine recount.]

A statewide recount was immediately and appropriately called.
At the end it was close, but Mr. Bush won.

     [Wrong again.  You mean, "As the machine recount proceeded, Mr. Gore
gained votes, and the contest became even closer."  Peggy, if machine counts
are so accurate, why did the recount differ from the first count?  And why
did that difference so disproportionately favor one candidate -- Mr. Gore --
over the other?]

Even before the recount was over the outcome was contested.

     [Peggy -- the recount isn't over until the painted lady certifies.  And
the Florida Supreme Court directed that she not certify until Sunday night,
including the results of hand counts completed by Sunday night.]

By Wednesday there are charges that a "butterfly" ballot, designed and approved by
Democrats and published to no protest in the press, was confusing and thus unfair.

     [Unfortunately, Palm Beach County voters were not able to vote by
marking the Palm Beach County ballot printed in the newspaper.  They had to
use machines.  In any case, this issue is unrelated to hand recounts, which
you claim constitute Mr. Gore's scheme for stealing the election.  Try to
stay on topic.]

Jesse Jackson is dispatched to Florida, where he charges that Holocaust
survivors have been denied a voice.

     [Have the Republicans produced Holocaust survivors to claim that they
INTENDED to vote for Pat Buchanan?]

Elderly widows announce they never meant to vote for anyone but Al Gore.

     [Peggy, are you claiming that these "elderly widows" were "dispatched"
to Florida?  Otherwise, mentioning them seems to support the Democrats'
claim that the Palm Beach County ballot confused them.  Wouldn't that have
been "unfair," if not illegal?]

Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile announces blacks were kept from the
polls with racial harassment and, when that wasn't enough, dogs.

     [Would you care to refute these charges, or do you assume that readers
of the Wall Street Journal will automatically dismiss any and all charges of
"racial harassment"?]

Three Democratic counties in Florida announce they will hand-count.
But the rules of the hand count change and change again.

     [Peggy, you should tell our readers whether counties in Florida --
"Democratic" or not -- have the right to conduct hand recounts.  If you are
aware of any legal standards to be followed -- "the rules of the hand
count" -- please share them with us.  Otherwise, it seems as if you are
complaining about the very process of deciding upon the rules.]

The Florida secretary of state, a Republican elected official, calls a halt.

     [Oh, come on, Peggy.  You really must mention that this "elected
official," whom you seem reluctant to refer to by name, is Katherine Harris,
the co-chair of the Bush campaign in Florida.  Mrs. Harris campaigned for
Bush in New Hampshire.  If Mrs. Harris had a clear right to stop the hand
counts, why do they continue today?]

She notes that hand counts are called only when there have been charges
of broken machines or vote fraud. Fraud and breakdown were not charged,
and did not in fact occur.

     [Not so fast, Peggy.  "Broken machines" are machines which do not
record all valid votes.  The question is:  are there any valid votes which
were not counted by the machines?  If there are valid votes that were not
counted by the machines, and the uncounted valid votes could change the
outcome of the election, on what basis should we ignore the uncounted valid
votes?]

She says she will certify the election's outcome based on the original vote
count and the recount that followed, plus overseas absentee ballots.
Mr. Bush will be the victor.

     [The way you describe it, Mrs. Harris wasn't aware of the hand recounts
having been requested within the time permitted by law.  Wouldn't someone
other than a partisan have showed some concern for counting all valid votes?
Mrs. Harris was required by federal law to wait for the overseas absentee
ballots; couldn't she have announced that she would wait as least as long
for the hand counts?]

She is immediately smeared by Democratic operatives and in the press.
She is a political "hack," a "Stalinist," a "commissar"; she is a vamp, a lackey.

     [Whoa!  Wasn't it a Republican spokesman who called the opinion of the
seven judges of the Florida Supreme Court a "hack job"?]
     [Whoa!  Are you complaining that someone called someone a "Stalinist"?
See the end of your own piece, Peggy.]

The Washington Post, a great newspaper, publishes this description of Mrs.
Harris: [You quote a description of Mrs. Harris that clearly accuses her of
applying her makeup with a trowel.]

     [A Washington Post staff writer named Robin Givhan wrote the
description of Mrs. Harris you quoted.  Ms. Givhan writes about fashion for
the "Style" section of the paper.  That was the same section of the same
newspaper that published very unflattering commentary about Mr. Gore's
change in wardrobe on the advice of a consultant.  You didn't exactly raise
your voice in protest then, Peggy, so your sensitivity to such "smears"
seems a bit hypocritical now.  If a fashion writer is to be lynched for her
impertinence in commenting on the appearance of a person in the news, the
same fate will await you, Peggy, for any disparaging remark that you have
ever written about Hillary Clinton's makeup, hairdo or wardrobe.  And you
devoted a whole book to criticizing her, didn't you?]

At the same time the Democratic operative Paul Begala writes his now-famous
essay suggesting Republican candidates draw their political strength from
murderers, sadists, racists and the killers of innocent children.

     [Mr. Begala must have learned at the knee of Newt Gingrich, who used
the Susan Smith case as an excuse to denounce the Democrats as the party of
baby drowners.]

Soon a Democratic operative in Washington is revealed to be gathering
information on electors who will vote for Mr. Bush in the Electoral College.
Why? To use the information to pressure them to vote Mr. Gore's way.
It would be surprising to hear that the famous Democratic Party private eyes
are not on the electors' trail.

     [It's quite a leap from "gathering information" to blackmail -- you must have huge thighs.
It would even be more surprising to read the evidence you have "that the famous Democratic
Party private eyes" ARE "on the electors' trail."  Maybe the PIs have been illegally taping their
telephone conversations with their elector friends.]

The mainstream press, watching, thinking and facing deadlines, issues its conclusion:
Conservatives are guilty of inflammatory rhetoric. Those columnists, writers and
public figures who have come forward to oppose what they see as an attempt by
Clinton-Gore operatives to steal the 2000 presidential election are denounced as
hotheaded and extreme, dismissed as partisan.

     [Peggy, could your use of the word "steal" -- from whom?  was it Jeb's election to steal?
-- possibly be considered "hotheaded and extreme" or "partisan"?]

The hand counting continues.
From the first it is completely open to mischief. In walks mischief.

     [In what form, exactly?]

Ballots for Mr. Bush are put in Gore piles.

     [And this mistake was noted and corrected.  Next accusation, please.]

Scads of chads on the floor.

     [That would be terrible -- if we knew how many "scads" were -- sounds like fuzzy math to me
-- and if we knew that the chads were poked out of ballots by the vote counters.  Does anyone
make this charge?  You seem to admit, below, that no one knows how the chads were dislodged.]

Vote counters can count a partly removed chad, and then an almost-removed
chad, and then a mark, a dimple, an indentation, a "pregnancy." Standards
are announced, altered, announced and altered again. Questionable ballots
are decided by Democratic-dominated canvassing boards.

     [Is it the right of the canvassing boards to make such decisions?]

Sworn statements under oath begin to emerge: Ballots are found with taped
chads; ballots are sabotaged, used as fans, found bearing Post-It Notes,
dropped, misplaced. Eyewitnesses say there is clear and compelling evidence
of distorting, reinventing, miscounting votes.

     [At last -- "clear and compelling evidence"!  Let the "eyewitnesses"
come forward!  Let the "sworn statements under oath" fully emerge!  Tell it
here, Peggy, don't wait for your next column!]

The vote counters--many exhausted and elderly, some state workers dragged
off lawnmowers, work 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. shifts in badly lit rooms.
A woman from Broward County whose husband is helping the recount writes,
"He said it's also frustrating because what we are seeing on the news is quite
a bit different from what is actually going on, little chads everywhere and
they have no idea where they are coming from."

     [Ooops!  Didn't you just say that we already have "clear and compelling
evidence" whence these poor little chads came?  By the way, were any hanging
chads dislodged during the machine recount?]

>From the Associated Press, Nov. 18, datelined Palm Beach: "On Saturday [one
vote counter] whispered in a pool reporter's ear as she was leaving [the
hand-counting room], "I've had it. I'm not coming back. There are some real
games going on in here."

     [Congratulations, Peggy!  You found a real quote!  The problem is, it
was the whispered comment of an anonymous vote counter, and it's by no means
clear that she meant that "real games" were being played by only one side,
or that "real games" constitute "distorting, reinventing, miscounting votes".]

And not only in there. From the Miami Herald, Nov. 18: "At least 39
felons--mostly Democrats--illegally cast absentee ballots in Broward and
Miami-Dade counties. . . . Their convictions range from murder and rape to
drunk driving. One is in the state's registry of sexual offenders."

     [Well, it was easy enough to spot the felons' absentee ballots, and it would be just as easy
to throw them out -- all of them, including the ones cast by Republican felons.  Unless a felony
conviction is considered a mere technicality, as you consider the lack of a postmark or a date
on an overseas absentee ballot . . . ]

In the first two weeks there is not a single charge of Republican mischief
in the counting rooms. Not a single person comes forward to charge that a
Republican has done a single thing that is dubious, untoward or wrong.
How could this be? With hundreds of people making thousands of decisions, is
it possible no Democrat would even make up a charge that some Republican had
done something wrong? One can't help but infer that Democratic discipline
is, as usual, operative. If they add to the charges of corruption, a
fair-minded judge might say: Then we must protect both sides and stop the
hand counting. But if they stop the hand counting, Democrats will not be
able to find 930 votes for Al Gore. And 930 is what he needs.
So no Democratic charges of corruption are leveled or dreamed up.

    [Oh, Peggy, only a Republican would swallow this line of argument.  If
there really was evidence of "corruption" -- even by one side and one side
only -- why would that evidence dissuade, rather than convince, "a
fair-minded judge" to step in?  It's the Republicans who have to make
"charges of corruption," in order to call into question the actual count,
which might go against them.]

There is no evidence that the absentee ballots of felons have been challenged.
But the absentee ballots of members of the military were challenged.
Many were thrown out.

     [You make a good point, Peggy.  There are rules that clearly spell out
the requirements for a valid absentee ballot, and these rules should be
applied equally.  That would mean throwing out fewer than 39 invalid
absentee ballots cast by Democratic felons, and several hundred invalid
absentee ballots cast by overseas military voters.]

In the most shameful and painful act of the hand counts, the Democrats on
the ground, and their operators from the Democratic National Committee
and the state organization and the Gore campaign, deliberately and
systematically scrutinized for challenge every military absentee ballot, and
knocked out as many as they could on whatever technicality they could find
or even invent.

     [Why is it that when the Democrats follow the law, you say that they
are trying to "find or even invent" technicalities?  What's wrong with "scrutiny"?]

Reports begin to filter out. The Democratic army of lawyers and operatives
marches into the counting room armed with a five-page memo from a Democratic
lawyer, instructing them on how to disfranchise military voters. The lawyers
and operatives unspool reams of computer printouts bearing the names and
party affiliation of military voters. Those who are Republicans are subject
to particular and seemingly relentless scrutiny. Right down to signatures on
ballots being compared with signatures on registration cards. A ballot
bearing a domestic postmark because a soldier had voted, sent his ballot
home to his parents and asked them to mail it in on time, is thrown out. A
ballot that comes with a note from an officer explaining his ship was not
able to postmark his ballot, but that he had voted on time--and indeed it
had arrived in time--is thrown out, because it has no postmark.

     [Why is it that when the Democrats follow the law, you say that they
are trying to "disfranchise [sic] military voters"?  Wasn't it the Florida
legislature that -- rightly or wrongly -- required postmarks on absentee
ballots, including those coming from military voters?  Wasn't the time to
object to this requirement BEFORE the election, rather than after?  You seem
to say that Palm Beach County voters are stuck with the results of that
confusing ballot; why are you trying to change the rules for military voters?]

Received late Wednesday, an e-mail forwarded from a Republican who
witnessed the counting of the Brevard County overseas absentee ballots.
It is 11:30 PM (Tuesday) and I have just returned from the count of absentee
ballots, that started at 4PM. Gore had five attorneys there, the sole
objective was to disenfranchise the military absentee voter. . . . They
challenged each and every vote. Their sole intent was to disqualify each and
every absentee voter. They constantly challenged military votes that were
clearly legitimate, but they were able to disqualify them on a technicality.
I have never been so frustrated in all my life as I was to see these people
fight to prevent our active duty Military from voting. They succeeded in a
number of cases denying the vote to these fine Men and Women.

    [Peggy, here is another tendentious use of the word "technicality."  If two punched
holes on a ballot, which instructs the voter to "Vote for group," can make that ballot invalid,
isn't it a bit extreme to claim that ruling an absentee ballot without a postmark is invalid
constitutes a "fight to prevent our active duty Military from voting"?  I'm deleting the rest
of the e-mail, which clearly reveals the bias of its author.  His reference to "the Draft Dodger
and his flunky" calls into question the credibility of his anonymous testimony-by-e-mail.]

Television both reports the story of what is happening in the vote-counting rooms and
doesn't report it. There are comic pieces and sidebars: "Amazing as it seems, Bernie,
there's actually a charge that one of the Democratic counters has eaten a chad!"

     [Peggy, aren't you admitting that no accusation, no matter how
ridiculous, goes unmentioned?  Doesn't that undercut your underreporting claim?]

But 16 days into the drama there has not been a single serious, extended and deeply
reported piece on network television investigating the charges comprehensively.
No "60 Minutes," no "Dateline," no "20/20." No extended look at charges of vote
tampering, no first-person interviews with eyewitnesses who saw the Democratic
operatives go after and throw out the military ballots.

     [Peggy, are you charging that ALL responsible media outlets have
conspired to cover up the biggest story in our lifetime -- the stealing of a
Presidential election? Or are you admitting that NO responsible media outlet
has evidence of the alleged theft?  With evidence -- the equivalent of the
stained blue dress -- no force on earth, and certainly not the Democrats,
could suppress the story.]

Television does, however, report "extraordinary anger among Republicans."
Ed Rollins says "partisan Republicans" are very angry about this.

     [Since Ed Rollins IS one of those "partisan Republicans," you're on firm ground here, Peggy.
Why didn't you also mention those people who assaulted an election official in Miami-Dade County?
Now, that was anger, strong enough to intimidate.]

Why is mainstream television (not the talk shows, not Sean and Alan, not
"Crossfire," but the mainstream news shows) missing this story, underreporting it?
It would be taking sides.
It would be partisan.
It would be extreme.

     [Peggy, you should discuss here the track record of "mainstream
television" in "missing" and "underreporting" the Lewinsky saga.  Were there
any ratings points that the TV executives failed to wring out of that story?
Otherwise, people will scoff at your claim that reporters -- who have avidly
pursued the stories of Whitewater, Travelgate and Filegate for years --
would let drop the matter of a stolen Presidential election, or that the
networks would refuse to air their reports.]

But there is more. We have all noticed the ideological evolution of media in our time.
Television is liberal, establishment-oriented, and does what it does: It entertains.

     [Peggy, conservatives have their very own television news channel, Fox
News.  You might find out what role John Ellis over at Fox played in calling
the Florida election for Gov. Bush.]

Shut out of television and eager for news, conservatives have turned in the
past 20 years to radio. And so now radio is conservative, and full of
uproar. The Internet too is conservative, and full of information, of samizdat.

     [Being "full of uproar" and "full of information" is not the same as
being "full of reason" and "full of facts."]

But television, the elite media, the great broadsheet newspapers, and the
clever people who talk loudly on television--that is, the powers that be,
the forces that are--day by day appear through action and inaction, through
an inability to see and a refusal to see, to be (a) allowing the stealing of
an election in Florida, and (b) subtly taking out the critics of this hijacking.

     [Peggy, you really have to make up your mind -- is there (a) evidence
to be seen, or (b) not?  How can there be a secret hijacking?]

The Florida Supreme Court, known for its liberal activism, consisting of six
Democrats, one independent and no Republicans, ruled that Mrs. Harris must
include in the certified Florida results the final tallies from the
corrupted hand counts.

     [And what sort of "activism" was Mrs. Harris known for?]

Gov. Bush will fight in the courts and perhaps in the state Legislature.
"Make no mistake," he said Wednesday in responding to the justices in
Tallahassee, "the court rewrote the law. It changed the rules, and it did so
after the election was over."

     [Honesty would compel you to quote Gov. Bush's challenge to the right of the Florida Supreme
Court to interpret Florida's laws -- however absurd that challenge may seem.]

Ideas, all modest and obvious, and yours will be better:

     [Well, you said it -- I won't argue.]

Every Republican senator and congressman, every governor and state
legislator should starting now come forward and pledge his opposition to the
Gore attempt to steal the election. They should be all over the local
airwaves back home, making the case against the dishonesty that is
occurring. They might point out that most thieves have enough respect to rob
a house when it is empty, but in this case the thieves are stealing while
the country is home, and watching.

     [This is just silly, Peggy.  Thieves don't rob in the absence of
witnesses out of "respect" for their victims, but out of a desire to hide
their crimes.  Daylight robbery is the easiest crime to detect.  Catch your
thief first, and then convict.]

We must keep our arguments sharp. The other night Alan Colmes challenged
Newt Gingrich: Do you really think it fair to charge the Democratic Party
with trying to suppress military votes? Mr. Gingrich replied that you can
see the Democratic plan in this: They issued a five-page memo on how to
knock out military votes, which they assume lean Republican. There was no
five-page memo on how to throw out the absentee ballots from Israel, which
they assume lean Democratic.

     [Maybe the "Democratic plan" was to "knock out" military absentee votes
cast after election day.  Is there any evidence to indicate that the same
standard was not applied to all absentee ballots?]

We must accept that the venue of the fight will change and change again.
This all may be decided by the Florida Legislature. Or the U.S. Supreme
Court. Or in Congress. When venues change you must be nimble.

     [You have to be nimble to spin -- at least as nimble as the Bush
campaign, which was first through the courthouse door.]

We must be prepared, and learn all we can, and know all we can, and spread the word.
We must accept too that in spite of being spoofed and put down and accused of being
extreme,  it is not wrong to fight in this case, it is right. It is not irresponsible--it is the
only way of being responsible. It is wrong to yell "Fire!" for the fun of upsetting your
neighbors. It is right to yell "Fire!" when your neighbor's house is in flames.

     [Careful, Peggy -- you won't be able to prove the existence of a fire just by blowing smoke.]

We must through e-mail and telephone calls and call-ins to radio and
television report all of the data we are receiving, all of the evidence that
the theft of an election is taking place day by day in Florida. Those on the
ground in Florida, in the counting rooms, must even more become part of
this. The one thing history needs more of--and the courts need, too--is
first-person testimony.

     [Peggy, a person can only tell the truth -- he can't tell "even more"
of the truth.  If only you'd attached the name of a real human being -- just
one -- to any of the "first-person testimony" that you've provided in this
column, you'd be on firm ground.  As it is, you're sinking fast in a swamp
of your own choosing.]

It must of course remain peaceful--peaceful protest, passive resistance,
voices strong, clear and modulated.

     [No more mobs chasing election officials, eh, Peggy?  That won't be necessary in Miami-Dade
County, at least -- now that they've stopped their hand count.]

We don't support breaking laws--we support upholding the law.

     [Except those mere technicalities about hand counts, postmarked or
dated absentee ballots, the role of courts in interpreting laws, assault, etc.]

And of course, in some part of our minds we must look to the future. To
legislation that will normalize and regularize our voting procedures, make
clear and just its rules and regulations, see to it that a Florida will never happen again.

     [What sort of legislation did you have in mind, Peggy?  As a model,
would you like to propose the Texas law that Governor Bush signed?]

And this idea, from a conservative activist. In January President Bush, as
his first act in office, should announce that he will give a complete pardon
to anyone who goes down to the FBI within 30 days and swears out a
confession of his involvement in vote fraud and vote tampering in the 2000
elections. It's harder to spin history when history has the affidavits.

     [What?!?  Pardon the people who tried to steal the Presidency?!?  Where
is your regard for the "rule of law"?  Besides, it would be far easier to
persuade all those eyewitnesses to come forward with their evidence of "vote
fraud and vote tampering" by others, and to prosecute the alleged evildoers.
It's all too easy "to spin history" if self-proclaimed criminals are invited
to confess to imaginary crimes, and then walk out the door.]

And of course we must all pray. I say this more than I do it, and not many
of us have done it enough, which is the reason this happened. Prayer can
move mountains; it could have redirected Al Gore's ferocity and need, too.
Prayer--simply talking to God--is the one thing without which we lose.

     [Peggy, you appear to be saying that because "we" didn't pray, God let a Democrat get too close
to winning.  How will prayer win this election for "us," exactly?  If "we" do pray, will the magical
dolphins who saved Elian come to "our" rescue?]

There is now all over the Internet a quote attributed to Stalin that for so
many sums up the Florida story: "It doesn't matter who votes, it only
matters who count the votes."

     [Did you lack the time, or just the inclination, to verify the accuracy
of that quote?  Maybe the quote really was: "It doesn't matter who votes, if
you don't have to count every vote."  Peggy, why don't you ask your cronies
in the Bush campaign why they oppose counting all the ballots?]
 

Margaret Shemo