Christopher Hitchens: Yes, We’re the Great Pretenders. “I’ve been tempted to exercise this right every time I hear some fool on TV say that the current fiasco proves what a wonderful system we have.
Please. Por favor. Je vous en prie. It proves nothing of the kind. What it does is expose the huge bias against democracy that is built into the
system. Those million uncounted votes in California would have elected two senators if they were cast in Montana or Delaware, thus enabling any
two tiny rural white states to outvote Illinois or New York, and would have elected no senators at all if they were cast in Washington, DC, which is
legally disfranchised. And even if the whole pile of absentee votes had gone to Bush in California, they would still have been “represented” by
exclusively Gore electors in the Electoral College. (Which is why the Republicans do not protest the injustice, since the Electoral College has
become their last best hope.) Other democratic countries do not watch in respectful awe as America avoids “blood in the streets” in a contest
between two bloodless candidates. Other democratic countries say, Wow, whatever system we may have, it’s not as flagrantly fouled up as the
Yankee one. If this were a seriously pluralistic system, a Gore-Nader coalition government would now be in the cards; a ridiculous notion I grant
you, but by no means as ridiculous as two hereditary princes simultaneously trying on the crown while going back to their corporate fundraisers to
hire fresh teams of attorneys. Meanwhile, one Pretender hasn’t even quit as governor of Texas and one Vice Pretender hasn’t resigned as senator
from Connecticut. ” The Nation