As I understand it, ACORN submitted questionable registration forms:

~ in states where they were required to submit all filled-out forms, and

~ with cover-letters flagging the questionable applications that their own quality-control operation had identified.

Short of abandoning all efforts to get out the vote, what more could be asked of them?

In the current climate of bitter partisanship, and of a trend among Republican operatives to suppress and discourage new voter registrations as a general rule, I would not be at all surprised to learn that election officials in GOP-controlled jurisdictions might not have intentionally disregarded ACORN's accompanying disclaimers pointing out the obviously fraudulent forms, with the clear intent of creating controversy and distraction, when their assigned role as administative employees on the public payrolls would be to approve the many good registration applications and to winnow out the bad ones, referring to ACORN's accompanying documentation when appropriate, and to do so without unneccessary public comment.

At last night's debate, McCain started to sound off on this manufactured controversy by spouting a bunch of rhetoric about "the greatest election fraud ever perpetrated in our great nation's history," or some such hyperbole. What a load of obvious crap! Even McCain himself more-or-less dropped the subject quickly, when it was pretty obviously not getting him anywhere.

The thing is, until an unqualified person actually shows up to cast an invalid ballot, there is no election fraud.

Does anyone really believe that any non-citizen, felon, under-18 teenager, or otherwise unqualified individual is going to show up at the polls with a picture ID to vote under the false identity of "Terrell Owens" or "Mickey Mouse"?

Even if you believe that one or two shady individuals might pull off such an unlikley misrepresentation, can you seriously argue that any meaningful statewide result would be jeopardized?

Get over it!

And also ~ please give some serious thought to the validity of any political philosophy that depends so strongly upon the prevention of voting by certain selected groups of citizens in order to retain its hold on power.