Don't get "Fooled Again"

In his new book, Mark Crispin Miller tries to prove that Republicans rigged the 2004 election, but his evidence is thinner than a butterfly ballot.

By Farhad Manjoo

Nov 14, 2005 | On Nov. 4, Mark Crispin Miller, the New York University media studies professor and longtime Bush critic, appeared on the lefty radio show "Democracy Now!" to promote his new book, "Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them)." As part of an on-air debate with the investigative reporter Mark Hertsgaard, who recently criticized Miller's book in Mother Jones magazine, Miller let slip a dramatic piece of news about last year's Democratic nominee for the presidency. "On Friday, this last Friday night, I arranged to meet Senator Kerry at a fundraiser to give him a copy of my book," Miller said. "He told me he now thinks the election was stolen."

Now, this was big news. If what Miller said about Kerry was right, it would have signaled a momentous shift in thinking for the senator. For a year now, partisans on the left who say that Bush stole last year's presidential race have had a hard time making their claim stick precisely because Kerry, the man they allege was the main victim of the fraud, had so quickly conceded the election and so thoroughly ignored any suggestion that it had been rigged. But if Kerry now thought that these people were right -- if Kerry now believed Bush didn't actually win the race -- well, that would change everything. Suddenly the year-long online barrage of half-baked theories and misreported election data that some people say proves a massive, successful Republican conspiracy to install Bush in the White House would have found a very prominent, aggrieved backer, someone to finally make the case to the world that Americans had been cheated of their rightful president.

Unfortunately for the partisans, Miller's Kerry blockbuster quickly fizzled. "I know Mr. Miller is trying to sell his book and he feels passionately about his thesis, but his recent statements about his conversation with Senator Kerry are simply not true," Jenny Backus, a Kerry spokeswoman, told Raw Story shortly after the "Democracy Now!" broadcast. "The only thing true about his recollection of the conversation is that he gave Senator Kerry a copy of his book."

Of course, I don't know what transpired between the professor and the senator, but Miller's shaky scoop is all too typical of much of the reporting in his book, in which Miller claims to prove that "hundreds, even thousands" of people on the right, spread across the country, conspired to steal the 2004 presidential election (and many others besides).

I say that Miller claims to prove this because that's pretty much all he does. In his introduction, Miller promises to prove that Republicans rigged the race, and then at some point in the middle of the book he begins talking like he already has, and the reader is left to leaf through the volume in a daze, wondering if perhaps some kind of typesetting or bookbinding error caused the explosive section of Miller's tome to be left out of this one copy. But not so; my book is intact, and though I searched the contents, the index and the voluminous endnotes, I found no proof of Miller's theory. Like his claim that Kerry now believes he was robbed, Miller's many suggestions of fraud dissolve under close scrutiny. By the end, the only fraud you're sure of is the one perpetrated upon you, the reader, into bearing with this book.

In an ideal world, one wouldn't feel compelled to review -- nor to say much of anything about -- a book like "Fooled Again." In an ideal world, books like these -- vacuous, tendentious collections of pseudo-journalism that promise 10 times as much in their titles as they deliver between the covers -- would die quietly off in the media distance, ignored by everyone, inciting nobody, collecting dust and a heap of embarrassment for their overheated authors.

But if I sound somewhat exercised about "Fooled Again" it's because I know we don't live in that world in which bad books are guaranteed to fall from our collective radar -- god knows that's not how things work around here. Instead, in this world, the world of Free Republic and Democratic Underground, half-truths and partisan theories rattle about endlessly over e-mail and blogs until they achieve a sheen of truth, however insubstantial they may be. Miller's book is already getting much play: Aside from a national book tour, he's making the rounds on shows like "Democracy Now!" (which, to its credit, also invited a skeptic of Miller's theories), and in August, Harper's magazine published a lengthy excerpt from "Fooled Again" (and, depressingly and unsurprisingly, did not question Miller's assertions).

Thus, "Fooled Again" probably isn't going to go away. This is not good news for anyone who cares about the sanctity of American elections. The fact is that the machinery of American democracy is broken; mistakes, inaccuracies, chicaneries, snafus, frauds, fiascoes and disasters debilitate almost every race everywhere every two years, with the result that increasing numbers of Americans report feeling alienated by the voting process. It's no exaggeration to say the problem has reached the level of a national emergency.

But by putting forth exaggerated and easily disputable theories of election theft, "Fooled Again" undermines the entire reform endeavor, tying the legitimate need to fix things to the less laudable, fringe-left goal of mercilessly bashing Bush. If you want to improve how Americans vote, here's one piece of advice: Don't alienate half the country by arguing, as Miller does here, that the president and his followers -- whom Miller labels "Busheviks" -- think of their political enemies as "subhuman beings," and believe they must "slaughter" their opponents in the same way that religious fanatics slaughter their holy foes. Even if you believe this to be true, and even if it is in fact true, shut up about it; this sort of unhinged rhetoric can't help, and can only hurt, our capacity to solve the problem of voting in America.

Next Page: What about those 19,000 mystery votes in Miami County, Ohio?

• 
• Read all letters on this article (48)
• Read Editor's Choice letters on this article (5)
• View blog reactions