More Lies of The Moonie Times

The contempt in which the Moonie Times holds its readers is a beautiful and humorous thing to behold. Here's part of an editorial from today's rag, bashing General Wesley Clark.

Mr. [sic] Clark's evasiveness regarding his Democratic Party affiliations is troubling, but his ignorance of American politics is more disturbing. Last week on ''Crossfire,'' Mr. Clark said: "The majority of the people in this country really aren't affiliated with parties, they're independent." This is dead wrong. Three-quarters of the voters register as Republicans or Democrats, and another five percent or so belong to minor parties. Four out of five voters identify themselves as partisans because they embrace the particular set of political ideals for which their chosen party stands. They grasp something that apparently eludes the general: Politics is about principles.

In the November 2000 national election, there were 205,815,000 Americans of voting age. Of that number, 156,421,311 were registered voters. In other words, approximately 76 of the voting age public is registered to vote. If every one of the 105,586,274 voters who cast a vote in the 2000 Presidential election was a partisan (that is, registered with a party), only 51 percent of voting age Americans cast a partisan vote in the 2000 election. If we use the Moonie figure of 80 percent partisans, however, only 84,469,019, or 41 percent, of voting age Americans cast a partisan vote in the 2000 national election. (And that assumes all partisans voted for the presidential candidate of the party they were registered for.)

80 percent of all voters may be registered with a political party, but those that can't be bothered to vote are hardly partisan, much less principled, as the Moonie rag would have us believe. The Moonie rag counts non-voting party members as principled while simultaneously characterizing Americans who vote but don't join a political party as "mercenaries." Of course, a cult would consider those who refuse to join a group as dangerous deviants.

Now, I am very partisan, and think partisanship is a good thing. But that doesn't mean refusal to join a political party cannot be a principled position. And membership in a political party doesn't confer any principles -- just look at the members of the Republican party.

The Moonie rag also overlooks the fact that some portion of voters who register with a party don't do so because of the "political ideals" of the party, but rather for personal gain (such as a patronage job) or because of family influence or other factors.

One could attribute the Moonie Times' smear of General Clark to a disturbing ignorance of American politics. But the Moonies know exactly what they're doing -- crafting fraudulent talking points their suckers readers can spread like a highly-contagious veneral disease.

Note: The above figures are only approximate, since they do not take into consideration the unknown number of Democrats who had their votes stolen.