Three weeks before the presidential election of 2008, Newsnight hired far-Left political activist Greg Palast to do a couple of video reports (which can be viewed here and here) about voter fraud in the US. This was a strategically-timed effort to create suspicions in the minds of the public in case Sen. McCain won the election. The BBC could raise the specter of 2004, and point to Palast's "investigations" as evidence that this election was stolen by racist Republicans who didn't want a black man as President. This time around, the margin of fraud in individual election races is going to have to be much larger than usual in order for people to trust the outcome. But this time around, the BBC has been utterly silent.
UPDATE 5 Nov.: Meirion Jones has kindly responded in the comment thread and pointed out a serious error I've made. I was wrong about him thinking that the Republicans stole the election in 2004. He thought it was stolen from Al Gore in 2000. That's my sloppiness, for which I apologize.
But seriously, I do want to thank him for taking the time to address this, even though he denies being a co-conspirator of Greg Palast. I define that as someone who works together with another person on projects for a specific cause. Mr. Jones has worked with Palast in the past, and it's that relationship which leads to Palast being featured on Newsnight.
As for ACORN's voter fraud, my point that both Jones and Palast deny that their activities are intended to or have had any effect on election outcomes still stands. Would whichever defender of the indefensible who alerted Jones to my post please pass this along to him. Thank you.
Newsnight producer Meirion Jones is a co-conspiritor of Palast's, having worked with him previously on an investigation of voter fraud in Florida in the 2004 elections (this wasn't mentioned in the report, nor did the BBC admit on air to Palast's activist assocation with Robert Kennedy, whom they show as an independent voice - so the BBC's dishonesty is there for all to see). Jones and Palast are convinced that Bush stole that election, so Newsnight hired Palast to do these reports, produced by Jones.
Needless to say, both reports were made with the intent to convince you that only Republicans engaged in voter fraud, usually with the goal of preventing poor black people from voting. In the second report, Palast actually whitewashes the now defunct ACORN, even going so far as to say that, while ACORN had been indicted for and a couple people convicted of voter fraud, there was no evidence that they actually influenced an election. Palast's report also took the standard far-Left activist/denier's line that all registered voters that were purged from the rolls for breaking various rules were in fact innocent. He provided no evidence for this.
I commented on it here at the time, and sent a complaint in to the BBC. Meirion Jones actually responded, and after exchanging a couple of emails it was clear that he believed that Bush stole the election, and that ACORN engaged in voter fraud for kicks, with no intent to affect the outcome of an election. He couldn't offer any valid reason why they would do such a thing if it wasn't to effect election outcomes. I knew at the time that if there was ever any evidence of voter fraud from the Democrats in future elections, the BBC would keep shtum, because of their political bias.
Now that we're having the second-most important election in human history (to judge from the hysteria at the BBC), I'm still waiting for the BBC to make a single report about the increasingly widespread Democrat voter fraud going on now.
Below the fold are several stories the BBC doesn't want you to know about.
