These are not scenes from a flourishing democracy.

* bob herbert (thnx jen):

"We know that Al Gore got more votes than George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election, and that of the people who went to the polls in Florida, more had intended to vote for Mr. Gore than for Mr. Bush. But Mr. Bush became president.

In 2004, Mr. Bush outpolled John Kerry by more than three million votes nationally. But widespread problems encountered by voters in Ohio, especially those who had intended to vote for Mr. Kerry, raised doubts about who had really won the crucially important Buckeye State. If Mr. Kerry had taken Ohio, he would have won the White House with a minority of the popular vote, as Mr. Bush had done four years earlier.

These are not scenes from a flourishing democracy. If you’re looking to put a positive spin on the current state of politics and government in the U.S., you’ve got your work cut out for you."

* billmon:

"To me, this is practically the definition of a political train wreck: A party (or, in this case, an organized crime family posing a political party) that is remarkably good at grabbing and holding on to power, but incredibly bad at actually running the complex machinery of a modern post-industrial state.
[]
...I don't know what's going to happen Tuesday. But I'm reasonably sure of one thing: A country ruled by a political party that is great at winning elections but terrible at actually governing is heading for one hell of a smash up, sooner or later. The only question is how long it will take and how bad the crash will be -- in the real world if not in the ballot booth.

* arkin:

" That is why Rumsfeld must go. The secretary of defense has been shown to be more concerned with his department's turf than with the military's well-being. The secretary of defense has turned his Constitutional duty to exert civilian control over the military into a compulsion to dominate it. Donald Rumsfeld is a slippery Washington manipulator who uses war and national security and "transformation" to build and hold his power and to bully any dissenters. Rumsfeld, like the rest of the political players in the Bush administration also seems to be completely out of touch with the conditions and truth in Iraq; the partisan political battle over Rumsfeld's head has sadly suppressed a needed national debate.

I hope Rumsfeld and the administration will hear the message from the electorate. I hope they will go to bed tomorrow night understanding that the American public is not behind their war. I hope, they will not dismiss the groundswell as the product of the media's unfair manipulation of the electorate.

The Military Times papers might have pulled a patently political stunt and they might be wrong in their characterization of the "military" mind, but that does not mean that Donald Rumsfeld should survive tomorrow's vote.