http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/

• December 5, 2004 | 5:52 p.m. ET
Votes, Steroids, and Shoes (Keith Olbermann)
NEW YORK - It’s not exactly Zola’s “J’Accuse.” In fact it seems to have been written entirely in Congressionalese.

But anybody seeking the proverbial laundry list of all the complaints, questions, and oddities of Election Night in Ohio is referred to the fifteen-page letter sent Thursday to Ohio’s Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, over the signatures of twelve of the fifteen Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee.

The document is so calm as to almost neuter the implications of the 34 specific questions John Conyers and his associates pose. It was not composed by a political firebrand. It does not invoke the Cuyahoga County “super voting” precinct numbers, since explained as amateurish accounting rather than political perfidy. Curiously, it does echo John Kerry’s ambiguous on-line statement. “We are sure you agree with us that regardless of the outcome of the election…”

More importantly, it starts where our own investigations of Ohio began, with the lockdown in Warren County as the votes were tallied there. The Judiciary members ask three questions that, in importance, actually transcend the election itself. They want to know if Blackwell has investigated the barring of reporters during the vote count, if Blackwell has identified the FBI agent who allegedly (and despite FBI denials) warned the county of a terrorist threat, and, most pointedly: “If County officials were not advised of terrorist activity by an FBI agent, have you inquired as to why they misrepresented this fact? If the lockdown was not as a response to a terrorist threat, why did it take place? Did any manipulation of vote tallies occur?”

Blackwell needs to answer these questions. He needs to answer them even if his answers aren’t very convincing. Twelve Congressmen from the losing side of a presidential election do not a Warren Commission make (forgive the coincidental historical analogy). The likelihood they’ll even get anything going inside the Judiciary Committee is negligible.

But posterity is a stern taskmaster. At the time, the election disaster of 1876 was wrapped up nicely, with Rutherford Hayes taking the oath early in 1877, and Samuel Tilden slipping into the backwaters of history. But ask any American of any political stripe about 1876, and if they paid attention in one Social Studies class in High School, they’re likely to tell you that was the year the presidency was stolen. A comprehensive study of the machinations that permitted the seating of a man who won neither the popular nor the electoral vote - and the awful consequences for the South of the resulting enabling compromise - was published as recently as last year (Roy Morris’s Fraud Of The Century http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/074...852954-6288814).

It is neither wild speculation nor partisan sour grapes to suggest that unless Blackwell promptly answers the 34 questions raised in the Democrats’ letter, the 2004 election will meet a similar historical fate. With the exponential growth in the rapidity of research, the issue, unless settled now by thorough and transparent investigation, could trickle gradually into the collective public consciousness - and far sooner than did the Hayes/Tilden fiasco. It should be assumed that even if the day-to-day chroniclers of such things in the media find Ohio’s vote too complicated, or too unlikely to alter the outcome, investigators and historians will populate the bookshelves of the nation with scathing analyses, even dismissals, of the 2004 vote - probably even before the nation again goes to the polls.

Logic must suggest to the more sober of the Republicans that this needs to be addressed now. A party trumpeting the already-exaggerated claims that its vote majority owes largely to the “Moral Values” issues has got to be aware of the potential for long-term damage that continuing a stonewall answer to those 34 questions (and others) can wreak. I only have to look away from this screen for a second, to my small collection of political campaign buttons, to underscore the wisdom of this warning. One of mine reads “The ‘I’ in Nixon stands for integrity.”

One of the benchmarks for this kind of cautionary tale can be found, oddly, in the burgeoning steroid scandal in baseball. When the steroid “precursor,” androstrenedione, was found to be in public view in the locker of Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals during his historic 1998 season, its presence caused a quick uproar that largely faded as McGwire first broke, then shattered the seasonal home run record. I recall interviewing the late, great, sportswriter Leonard Koppett on my old MSNBC program, and hearing him insist that the discovery of McGwire’s use of a substance so dangerous you can’t even get it with a prescription in Canada, would have no long-term effect on McGwire’s record nor the sport as a whole.

Six years later, McGwire is an almost-forgotten figure outside of the city he electrified. Barry Bonds, the even bulkier man who broke McGwire’s record, and now approaches Henry Aaron’s mark for career home runs, is at the center of the latest steroid firestorm. Jason Giambi, the New York Yankees’ slugger, proves to have admitted to a grand jury a year ago this month that he took steroids and human growth hormone obtained from Bonds’s personal trainer. Bonds testified that he obtained the same materials from the same man, but insists he was sure they were vitamins and “Flaxseed Oil.”

Baseball is unforgiving about results it later deems skewed. For years, the record for the highest seasonal batting average in history was given to Tip O’Neill of the 1887 St. Louis Browns, with a phenomenal mark of .492. But O’Neill’s average owed largely to a one-season rules interpretation: that bases on balls should be counted as hits. O’Neill’s average didn’t just get an asterisk - it prompted a gradual revising of history that saw his average reduced to .435 in all the record books.

But it didn’t stop there. Once the rules of the day were overruled by the perspective of history, the quality of the league in which O’Neill played - the old American Association - was gradually downgraded to the point where its stars were dismissed for consideration for the sport’s Hall of Fame, despite statistics equaling or surpassing those of the men who played in the rival National League of the same era.

And the progressive repudiation continued to expand. All of the hefty batting performances prior to 1893 are viewed with smiling derision, because it was not until that season that the pitcher was moved out to his current distance from the plate. Hitting was “too easy,” therefore the statistics of the time, and the men who compiled them, are ignored. The rewriting of history has also claimed the World Series played before 1900, and, in fact, nearly everything accomplished on a baseball field in the 19th Century - largely because 1893 is a more difficult separating point to remember than is 1900.

It is safe to say that Barry Bonds will be the Tip O’Neill of 2004, and his turn-of-the-century era could eventually wind up being as statistically invalid and quaint as events before 1900. His and McGwire’s records may stay in the books, but Henry Aaron’s and Roger Maris’s will likely be given unofficial priority.

That’s a lesson that should be remembered by Secretary of State Blackwell. A presidency, like a baseball season, is fleeting. History is not. As George W. Bush seeks the legacy so important to every second-term president, it should be remembered by him as well.

And lastly, while we’re in this overlap among politics, sports, the rules, and the credibility of authority - a quick thought about the Pittsburgh Steelers’ football quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. The National Football League has threatened him with a fine of $5,000 if he again adorns his shoes, or any other part of his uniform, with the hand-written message “40.”

The number is an homage to the late Arizona Cardinals’ player Pat Tillman, who quit football to serve his country as an Army Ranger, and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan last April.

For reasons of marketing, and to curb players from writing anything on their uniforms (whether “Hi Mom,” “Vote Bush,” or “Coca-Cola”), the NFL doesn’t want Roethlisberger paying public tribute to Tillman.

But, the league is happy to sell you a Pat Tillman replica jersey, complete with that big number 40, for $64.99.

Keep those emails coming at KOLbermann@msnbc.com

Well, I'd have to disagree about Barry Bonds' place in the history books.

Go Giants!

“We are sure you agree with us that regardless of the outcome of the election…”

I am beginning to love that line

so few words

so much meaning

Waiting.......

Waiting for all the perjury suits to start. Grand Juries and so on

Once again,

Gotta love that Keith!

(The devil-may-care attitude, the sparkly eyes...)

And brains, to boot!

GO KEITH.

Less than 30 days to go...

10 days - Last day for electoral vote to be cast

22 days - Congress open EV ballots


Besides, who would want the country Bush turned US into ?

Here's one of my favorite lithgraphs done by Kathe Kollwitz, her works were banned under Hitler in Germany.




YEAH WE'RE WAITING!