While most the media is half reporting, half ignoring (apparently the network morning shows have barely mentioned it) the story that George Bush actually won the Florida vote and the election (for the...what, fifth, sixth, seventh time?), and that Gore has yet to win a single recount, John Lott and Jim Glassman have teased out some interesting revelations from the statistical data that has gotten totally lost in all the mendacious noise and spin about "black disenfranchisement" in Florida. It turns out that the most likely voters to have spoiled ballots were black Republicans in counties with Democrat voting commissioners. Apparently, to whatever degree there was any hanky panky to keep blacks from voting, it was mostly directed at that roughly one in twenty misguided souls of African descent who had the temerity to not be Democrats. Now one in twenty doesn't sound like much, but it comes to over twenty thousand, and as Lott and Glassman point out, it's about twenty times the winning margin...

(Rare) kudos to the LA Times for publishing this.