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I tend not to put too much faith in "they stole the election" stories. The media would be all over a story like that, I assumed. And the victim candidate would surely cry foul.

So when AlterNet recently posted an interview with Mark Miller, author of (deep breath) Fooled Again: How The Right Stole The 2004 Election, And Why They'll Steal The Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them), I just skimmed it.

But this caught my eye:

AlterNet: I would think that the 2004 election story, if tracked and broken, would be huge for whoever breaks it. Any other thoughts about why it's so ignored?

Miller: We have to understand that for some decades the press has served basically an establishmentarian function...The press will not deal with any story that goes beyond a particular scandal to cast doubt on the very viability of the entire system. The press in this country will studiously ignore any story that too violently rocks the boat, whose implications are too shattering.

This is not new. Watergate was a story that the press avoided for months and months. Only the Washington Post pursued that story; everybody else made fun of it. Now we look back on Watergate with tremendous nostalgia and self-congratulation, telling ourselves the press saved the system. But since Watergate the press has preferred to deal with meaningless and trivial scandals like the Clinton scandals. They will not talk about 9/11, they will not talk about the theft of the last three elections.

That certainly rings true.

Miller later said this:

I think basically Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry this last time are far too concerned with establishment opinion, far too worried that they'll seem to be sore losers, conspiracy theorists, etc. They have therefore refused to go public with what they actually believe. Kerry told me personally on October 28th at a fundraising party that he believes the election was probably stolen.

But hours after Kerry's revelation to Miller broke in the press, a Kerry spokesman "vehemently" denied it:

The only thing true about [Miller's] recollection of the conversation is that he gave Senator Kerry a copy of his book.

Either Kerry or Miller is — well, bending the truth. And we know from his 2004 campaign that Kerry is capable of equivocating the truth right out of existence (and himself right out of the presidency).

If Kerry does, in fact, believe the election was stolen, it's not hard to believe that he would want to hide that opinion from the public. But others, like John Conyers, have not been afraid to state publicly that there were "numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters," and that these irregularities skewed the entire election.

I've been wrong — stories of major election fraud and 'Diebold magic' deserve our attention, and even a serious investigation. But I won't hold my breath.