Last night, I turned off the Packers—Titans blowout, and the Braves— Astros blowout, to briefly watch a C—SPAN discussion about the election.  David Boies, the Gore lawyer from the 2000 Florida election controversy, and sometimes considered by the fawning left as America's most brilliant lawyer (not counting of course his defeats in Bush v Gore, SCO,  Napster, or several other big cases lately), led the charge against the Electoral College. The College is an anachronism, he argued, and only in America can a leader be elected without winning the greatest number of popular votes. 

Really? Well, how about every parliamentary system in the world, where the leader comes from the party which wins the most seats in parliament? Isn't it possible for the party winning the most seats to win many of its seats by small margins, and lose the others by larger margins, and hence win fewer overall votes than another party?

Boies also condemned the Electoral College, since it is an indirect method for electing a President. Of course, every Parliamentary system is also an indirect system.  Boies conned the Florida Supreme Court in 2000, his last big win. Of course, a majority of that Court's members were ardent Democratic partisans, determined to keep counting, or inventing votes until Gore won.  Even a lesser lawyer's brief on behalf of Gore might have won the day with them. But people are catching on now to his illogic, and his  fundamental misunderstanding of government and elections. 

Richard Baehr   10 12 04