Topic: NewsBusters
First, the Qana conspiracy. Now, NewsBusters writer Noel Sheppard repeats a couple of dubious claims about the 2000 presidential election.
In the comment thread on an Aug. 5 post about, appropriately enough, 9/11 conspiracies, Sheppard claims that "Bush would have easily won that state if it hadn't been called an hour before the Panhandle polls closed." In fact, as we've previously reported, the first TV network to call Florida for Al Gore did so 11 minutes before the polls closed in the Florida panhandle, and even WorldNetDaily had trouble finding anyone who would confess to being dissuaded from going to the polls because of that.
Sheppard also suggested that "Gore trying to disqualify some military absentee ballots" was an act of "fraud." In fact, the military ballots in question did not meet Florida state election standards by not being postmarked or dated before the day of the election or through some other failing. We thought Sheppard was a rule-of-law kind of guy.
Sheppard also claims: "Democrats still avow that Bush stole the election regardless of the facts at the time, and the number of media outlets that went to Florida in January 2001 to count for themselves only to give the state to Bush." In fact, several of the scenarios under which media outlets counted ballots gave Gore the win in Florida.
