As the Electoral College is set to certify the election results, some liberals just cannot bring themselves to accept the fact that Bush won the election. Now a story is making the rounds in the mainstream media that the Presidential election is still in doubt. The subheadline of this AP story at CNN reads, "Doubts persist about integrity of nation's voting system". From the opening paragraph, they try to shed doubt on President Bush's legitimacy.

As the Electoral College prepares to certify President Bush's re-election on Monday, concerns persist about the integrity of the nation's voting system -- particularly in Ohio, where details continue to emerge of technology failures, voter confusion and overcrowded polling stations in minority and poor neighborhoods.

Few mainstream politicians dispute Bush's victory, and the incumbent's 3.5 million-vote margin nationwide was wider than any of the reported problems, which included insufficient or incomplete provisional ballots and, in some places, brazen partisan shenanigans.

Of course none of this really has anything to do with the "nation's voting system". Presidents are elected by the electoral college, and it just so happens that every state's electors are selected by statewide popular elections. State's could change the way they select their electors if they want (as evidenced by Colorado's attempt to apportion their electors popularly). Even if there are voting "irregularities" in Ohio, that does not reflect the "nation's voting system".

This is nothing more than a shameless attempt to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Presidential election. Despite the fallacy of their argument, after the 2000 election detractors were successful in portraying the President as "selected not elected". They claim that it was Al Gore who had really won the election and that if it weren't for the uber-conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court, Bush would have been sent packing back to Texas. For nearly 4 years, the Anybody But Bush crowd deluded themselves into thinking that using flexible recount standards, changing the rules, and devining Gore votes from hanging chads was somehow Constitutional.

Once you understand the suspension of rational thinking that the ABB crowd used for the 2000 election, it's easier to understand what is going on in Ohio. With the first popular vote majority since the first President Bush in 1988, it's pretty difficult to cast doubt that America really elected George W. Bush. So, not caring how pathetic they look to the rest of America, the detractors are grasping at any straws. They will do anything they can, no matter how absurd, to tear down President Bush.