A lot of people really have trouble with the whole concept of co-equal branches of government.

Normally the same folks who can't grasp the difference between a constitutional federal republic and a democracy. I wonder how Mr Alter feels about the electoral college? Let me guess...it's ok as long as his party wins.

irreason?

We are indeed in an era of unprecedented Congressional tyranny. Not a single bill has been vetoed by this President! Obviously he is cowed by this aggressive Congress, and so our system of checks & balances has completely broken down! Oh, the humanity!

alter had better keep the depends on for awhile longer, the man is wetting himself in fear.

funny you should mention Alter and the electoral college... the first I ever heard of him was the day after the 2000 Presidential Election (on Imus)..

he was seriously suggesting that GOP college electors should vote for Gore because he had won the popular vote .. I could not believe it.

the guy does not have a firm grip on political reality.

the guy does not have a firm grip on political reality.

Indeed he does, which is why he's so upset: his side lost.

NYT and NW = Dumb & Dumber.

For people like Alter, politics is a game in which he and his type are always supposed to win. If he doesn't, that means the game is crooked or the rules need to be changed.

Jon,

"funny you should mention Alter and the electoral college... the first I ever heard of him was the day after the 2000 Presidential Election (on Imus)."

You got it--Alter may literally be the first diagnosed case of BDS. I will never forget watching this go down on live TV at about 12:30 PST on election night in 2000.

Perhaps the only great moment in Slate was when the following, by Paul Burka, ran in the Breakfast Table on election day, 2000:

One troubling note: I ran into a Republican state senator today and asked him what would happen if Bush won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College. For several days, a rumor has been flying around town, spread by the Gore folks, that the Bush forces had a plan to lobby electors to switch their votes to their man. I wasn't taking notes since this was a casual conversation, so I can't tell you exactly what the answer was, but I came away with the distinct impression that this was the plan. I suggested that such a course would amount to a coup d'état, an attempt to overturn the outcome of a constitutionally held election, and the senator's response was, "A coup, yes, but not a coup d'état." Then he started talking about Kennedy stealing the 1960 election in Illinois, as if that justified anything. Will the country stand for this? Will the media? I think that a challenge to the Electoral College is a lot more serious than a fling with Monica Lewinsky, but based upon my sample of one, margin for error plus or minus 50 percent, Republicans do not agree. Do you think we're headed for trouble?

Soon thereafter, they got rid of the Breakfast Table.

David, the Gore wins te electoral college secnario was the topic of a number of people in the weekend leading up to the election. Most of those talking about it were supporting Al, and most were saying it because the polls prior to the release of the DWI story did lean more on the chance that Bush could win the popular vote, but lose the election. The amanzing, but not suprising thing, is that all that talk has been purged from the media's collective memory, and folks like Alter (and judging by today's speech, the ever-more hysterical presidential wanna-be himself) start with the idea that the 2000 election was illegitimate, and work themselves up into greater and greather lathers from there.

John: What was amazing was how quickly the Dems switched tracks. The next day, Burka was suggesting that we had to get rid of the electoral college and that it was up to Bush to throw the election to Gore. I understand that it's all who's Gore is getting axed, but that's ridiculous.

Does kind of recall the rewriting of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia to adjust history by turning heroes of the revolution into traitors or non-persons after each round of Stalin's purges, doesn't it?

A song for poor Jonathan:

They’re coming to take me away, HA HA
They’re coming to take me away, HO HO HEE HEE HA HA
To the funny farm
Where life is beautiful all the time
And I’ll be happy to see
Those nice, young men
In their clean, white coats
And they’re coming to take me away, Ha-haaa!
To the happy home
With trees and flowers and chirping birds
And basket weavers who sit and smile
And twiddle their thumbs and toes
And they’re coming to take me away, Ha-haaa!
To the funny farm
Where life is beautiful all the time
And I’ll be happy to see
Those nice, young men
In their clean, white coats
And they’re coming to take me away, Ha-haaa!

Hillary was the most notable of notables who spoke about the need to do away with the Electoral College following the election. She seemed quite serious about it but I guess her political advisers advised otherwise.