The tin-foil hat brigade is thrilled tonight to see that some of their delusions have crossed over into the semi-mainstream with a report tonight on MSNBC by Keith Olbermann. While the report isn’t titled “The ReThuglicans Stole the Election!!!!!!!”, it might as well be. For the most part it takes the heavy-breathing approaching, spending a long time reading out numbers which sound off and treating them as ipso facto proof of fraud.

Basically, one of the guests reads off a long list of County by County results from this year wherein President Bush won overwhelmingly in counties with heavily Democratic registration.

Baker County, Florida, on the Georgia border for instance. 69 percent of voter registered Democrats. 24 percent Republicans. Yet President Bush got 7,738. And Senator Kerry, just 2,180.

Sounds damning, yes? Oh: wait.

In 2002 Jeb Bush got 4515 votes in Baker County to Bill McBride’s 1961.

In 2000 President Bush got 5610 votes in Baker County and Al Gore got 2392.

In 1996, when Bill Clinton carried Florida 48% to 42%, Bob Dole received 3684 votes to Clinton’s 2273.

In Holmes County, in the panhandle, seven Democrats for every two Republicans in the district. Bush beat Kerry 6,410 to 1,810.

In 2002 Jeb Bush won Holmes County 3580 to 1986.

In 2000 George W. Bush won 5011 to 2177.

In 1996 Bob Dole won Holmes County 3248 to 2310, with Perot getting about 1200 votes.

In Dixie County, 77.5 percent registered Democrats, Bush 4,433, Kerry 1,959.

In 2002, Jeb Bush won Dixie County 2273 to 1722.

In 2000, the President won 2697 to 1826.

Dole lost Dixie County in 1996 to Clinton 1731 to 1398.

Lafayette County, 83 percent Democratic, Bush, 2,460. Kerry, 845.

Jeb won Lafayette1461 to 1060.

In 2000 it was 1670 Bush to 789 Gore.

In 1996 it was 1166 Dole to 829 Clinton.

In Liberty County, Bristol, Florida, 88 percent of registered voters there are Democrat. 8 percent Republican. Bush, 1,927. Kerry, 1,070.

In 2002, McBride won Liberty County 1433 to 932.

But in 2000, Bush won it 1317 to 1017.

Even Dole won it in 1996 by a narrow 913 to 868 margin.

Five examples in 29 counties with decided Democratic margins that suddenly voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Bush. In Florida counties where optical scanning of paper ballots was not used, no such violent swings were reported.

So, in other words, out of in four different elections these five counties combined went Republican eighteen times and Democrat twice. That’s not a swing: it’s entirely consistent with what we know.

It’s really very simple: the Republican turn-out machine worked almost perfectly this year and the Democratic one underperformed. In addition, careful Republican campaigning resulted in the turn-out of those much ballyhooed “values voters” who, not unnatural, would come from the sort of small counties described here. The high Democratic registrations are essentially meaningless: these counties are mostly part of the Florida that remains a part of the South.

MSNBC should be ashamed for airing such blatant scaremongering without doing some very basic research.