Johnson's 15 seconds of fame on Fox News

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Sep 22, 2008 at 06:44:09 AM MST

Where's the crime? If the joke was about murder, there'd be no body. There'd be nobody missing. Mike McGrath: "the accusations contain no allegation supported by fact." Those who are demanding for investigation need to do one thing: find someone -- anyone! -- who was victimized by the kind of action described in Schweitzer's jokes.

H*ll, even Brad Johnson admits this on his 15 minutes of fame in the Fox News segment:

Fox News: ...the Attorney General Mike McGrath turned your request for an investigation down. He said there was no allegation supported by fact. Do you buy that, or do you think there could be wrongdoing here?

Brad Johnson: Well...you know...I'm not judge and jury, Eric. Uh, it's, it's my job to see to it that we get to the bottom of this and, uh, the authority I have in that regard is to formally refer this matter to the Attorney General, and the fact is that he rejected the request.

The shorter Brad Johnson: "No, I have no facts to support my allegations."

This is electioneering, this is political. If Schweitzer had said he framed Roger Rabbit, the usual gang of bloggers and brainiac Republican officials would fall over themselves demanding an investigation.

And remember, Johnson is the man who crowed after the legislative audit of the 2006 election showed no voter fraud, "This audit is a victory for Montanans. It's a victory for the dedicated county elections officials around Montana who make this system work. We protected the integrity of our electoral process, and it shows."

"...very little uniformity in how poll workers had been instructed to deal with different (absentee) situations, suggesting there is considerable risk voters in different counties will receive different treatment at the polls and experience different outcomes in terms of the voting process."

...and urged Johson to "lead the way" in mitigating the problems? You may not be able to find the report at the SoS website, but thankfully some of the languate is preserved at LiTW. A SoS so bad he couldn't staff his office; a SoS so bad folks from his own party despise him.

In short, Johnson completely botched the 2006 election. If there was fraud, it was his fault, not Schweitzer's.

By the way, be sure to catch ol' Boss Hogg Burns at the end of the Fox News segment. He's in rare form. Here's his spluttering comment against Schweitzer, which has to rate a solid "9" on the scale of unintentional humor. (Did anyone see a bottle laying around?):

Conrad Burns: Our system has no teeth in it. You can say, well, you slap his hands and you go on down the road. So it takes people of integrity, it takes people it's honest with the electorate in the state, and also people who put the country above their own party needs, or the party election.

Uh, yeah. And that's exactly why you're out on your *ss and working for Leo, Connie, and why Obama's going to take Montana.

By the way, I am much amused by the continued efforts of the state Republicans to rehabilitate Conrad Burns. I welcome it! Let's make all our elections about Conrad Burns' ethics!

Update: I found the report at the legislative website (pdf). Odd the link was broken...let's have an investigation!