The Democratic National Committe has just concluded what pretty much every sane political observer realized back in November. President Bush won re—election in November, and carried Ohio by a comfortable margin.

There  were long lines and delays in Ohio. It rained hard in parts of the state (perhaps the moonbats believe that Karl Rove ordered rain in Cleveland, by having Air Force planes seed specific cloud formations).

Some voters were inconvenienced by the bad weather and long lines at some polling stations (in Gambier, Ohio, home of Kenyon College, the long voting line became a civic carnival and party). But turnout was way up statewide in Ohio compared to 2000 (from 4.7 million votes cast in 2000 to  over 5.6 million votes cast in 2004, or a gain of near 20%), so it does not appear that any of the weather issues or delays inhibited many voters from casting  their ballots.

The DNC panel, led by Donna Brazile, head of the Party's Voting Rights Institute, included pollsters, voting machine experts, and political scientists. They found no evidence of any voting machine fraud ,such as the alleged switching of votes by evil Diebold executives. Even the noramlly hard—headed Christopher Hitchens had bought into some of the loonier conspiracy fantasies about the Ohio vote in a recent article in Vanity Fair.

Whether this ends the left's assault on the legitimacy of the Ohio vote is unclear. The left's chief conspiracy  theory generator in Congress, Michigan Democrat John Conyers, held a rogue fantasy committee hearing on the theft of Ohio by the Republicans a few months back, with some of the same "experts" he called for his mock impeachment hearing last week, such as John Bonifaz. Hopefully, the faithful on the left, will now decide to moveon.

Richard Baehr   6 23 05