Down on my criticism of Eric Alterman, RLB (who left no e-mail, otherwise I would've responded in private) makes the following comment:

Um, let's see . . . Alterman points out Bush's status as a minority president (indisputable) who won the EC without a clear vote count (would have been true of Gore also, but he had the majority of the nation) . . . and you seem to think that Alterman's point was to accuse Bush of totalitarianism. Maybe you can fill in about fifty logical steps you have leaped over.

Read the quote of Alterman again, specifically: "They do, however, fail to note that another shared characteristic of both presidents is that neither man had been honestly elected president..."

If Alterman had said what you claimed he did, I'd have no problem with it. Remember, Clinton was a minority president too. As was Abraham Lincoln. But being a minority-elected president doesn't make you a fraud, which is what Alterman is claiming. And won the EC (electoral college) without a "clear vote count?" You want a clear vote count? Here.

Second, I didn't think that Alterman's point was to accuse Bush of totalitarianism. I merely classified Alterman as the type of idiotarian who complains that Bush is destroying our civil liberties and freedom of speech, when the fact that he can vociferously criticize Bush without getting tossed in the slammer disproves his point.