For the past eight years, liberals have screeched and moaned about how President Bush STOLE THE ELECTIONS!!!11!!!1!!!1!!! This, of course, is a load of crap, as President Bush actually did win the election. I’m sure that all those people were only concerned about making sure the voices of the people were heard, not anger over someone they disagree with winning office.

And considering how much liberals love fairness and upholding democracy, shouldn’t they be more concerned about a real, live, honest-to-God stolen election going on right now?

I haven’t commented much on the drama going on in Minnesota, with the race for the Senate between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. Why bother? I knew from the beginning what the outcome would be. No matter who the people actually voted for, Al Franken would be declared the winner. And that’s exactly what will happen, because there is no other allowable outcome beyond a Franken victory. It doesn’t matter whether or not Minnesotans want him; all that matters is that some crazy guy wants to be a Senator and he’s got a (D) next to his name. Every single outcome of the recount, no matter what they find, will benefit Al Franken, as the Wall Street Journal is noticing.

Under Minnesota law, election officials are required to make a duplicate ballot if the original is damaged during Election Night counting. Officials are supposed to mark these as “duplicate” and segregate the original ballots. But it appears some officials may have failed to mark ballots as duplicates, which are now being counted in addition to the originals. This helps explain why more than 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote. By some estimates this double counting has yielded Mr. Franken an additional 80 to 100 votes.

This disenfranchises Minnesotans whose vote counted only once. And one Canvassing Board member, State Supreme Court Justice G. Barry Anderson, has acknowledged that “very likely there was a double counting.” Yet the board insists that it lacks the authority to question local officials and it is merely adding the inflated numbers to the totals.

In other cases, the board has been flagrantly inconsistent. Last month, Mr. Franken’s campaign charged that one Hennepin County (Minneapolis) precinct had “lost” 133 votes, since the hand recount showed fewer ballots than machine votes recorded on Election Night. Though there is no proof to this missing vote charge — officials may have accidentally run the ballots through the machine twice on Election Night — the Canvassing Board chose to go with the Election Night total, rather than the actual number of ballots in the recount. That decision gave Mr. Franken a gain of 46 votes.

Meanwhile, a Ramsey County precinct ended up with 177 more ballots than there were recorded votes on Election Night. In that case, the board decided to go with the extra ballots, rather than the Election Night total, even though the county is now showing more ballots than voters in the precinct. This gave Mr. Franken a net gain of 37 votes, which means he’s benefited both ways from the board’s inconsistency.

There’s lots more, but from that alone I think you get the picture. And of course, liberals aren’t decrying this election, even though it’s undoubtedly stolen. Breaking the law and stealing elections is perfectly acceptable, provided it benefits the right people.

And as for the wimps on our side, I’d love to see them actually grow a backbone and put up a fight. Coleman says he’ll sue, but what happens when that doesn’t work? It’ll be back to the GOP standard of rolling over and playing dead.

It’s a great time for politics in America, isn’t it?

Hat Tips: Ace and Hot Air Headlines