Trump's election battle

Following the election, the president and his supporters screamed foul, claiming election theft, voter fraud, and even sinister deep state intervention. But by all credible accounts, the past election was one of the cleanest in history.

Trump's own attorney general, normally willing to stretch the Constitution for his president, found no basis for fraud claims. Trump's own Homeland Security team also found the election squeaky clean. Court after court, both state and federal, many with Trump-appointed judges, have blasted the failure of Trump lawyers to produce any credible evidence of malfeasance. Rudy Giuliani, leading Trump's legal assault, couldn't claim massive voter fraud in court, fearing sanctions for making a false claim. Throngs of so-called witnesses have claimed egregious wrong doing when interviewed on cable news, but when asked to swear under oath, suddenly vanished.

Claims of voting machine misuse have been equally discredited by experts. Local poll workers pointing out the integrity of cross checks between paper ballots and machines were bewildered by the baseless claims.

Neither theft, fraud or a mythical "deep state" had anything to do with the president's loss. Downplaying and bungling the response to a pandemic that has claimed over 300,000 lives likely did.

A famous baseball manager badgered by a reporter to explain why his team lost a game replied candidly, "We didn't get enough runs." In the end, the president lacked the grace to follow that example and recognize that he lost because, simply, he didn't get enough votes.

WILL RICHARDSON, Jackson