Soapbox

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Shame on the Columbus Dispatch’s editorial writers.

Shame on you for deliberately misleading readers in your editorial “Throwing a Fit” . When you characterized Stephanie Tubbs-Jones and Barbara Boxer’s attempts to light a fire under the issue of voting reform as a childish temper tantrum, you crossed the line.

Did you actually listen to what was said that day? Either you didn’t, and so have no business commenting on it, or you did, and chose to engage in yellow journalism. The democrats who objected on Thursday made a point of saying that they were not trying to overturn the election of 2004 or cast aspersions on the results, but only to demand that real reform be made at last, before the next election is upon us and its too late! In what way is this childish?

To say that the party leadership should have “shut them up” to avoid looking bad shows an appalling lack of understanding of the concept of free speech and what the democratic party stands for.

After the election debacle of 2000, big reforms were promised by those in power. 4 years later, we find many were never even begun, probably because no one made a big enough fuss. It has become clear that someone must stand up and shout “The emperor has no clothes!” to convey to the entrenched bureaucracy of Ohio how urgent it is that meaningful changes are made now.

Maybe you think it is too much to ask that a person who stands in line in the rain for hours feels confident afterwards that his or her vote was cast and counted. Perhaps you don’t think fair voting is an important part of democracy, but is it good journalism to belittle those who do?

There are indeed people in Ohio and elsewhere who feel that George Bush stole a second election from America and would like to overturn the results; however, Senator Boxer and Rep. Tubbs-Jones do not count themselves among this group. If you cannot stick to the facts in the future, I suggest you change your name to “The Columbus Enquirer”.