It would not take a constitutional amendment to, say, institute Instant Runoff Voting on a state-by-state basis as the way that each state's electoral votes are to be determined. Even if you retained a winner-take-all result in each state (i.e., whoever ends up with 50.01% of the state vote takes all of the state's electoral votes), it would take a simple piece of state legislation to declare that that state's voters may rank their votes for president, allowing each voter in that state to give his first-choice vote to the candidate he loves (say, Nader), and his second-choice vote to the candidate he kinda likes (say, Obama), so he doesn't have to worry about accidentally helping to elect the candidate he really dislikes (say, McCain).

IRV would instantaneously eliminate the spoiled-vote dilemma. And, again, each state could enact it, literally, today.

The Green Party has been pushing for more than 8 years to get IRV enacted. In most cases, the Democratic Party has responded to this effort with apathy, or outright opposition. Which suggests that perhaps the Democratic Party is far more interested in having the Greens remain a scapegoat and whipping boy than it is in eliminating the spoiler dilemma and freeing you to vote for a progressive candidate you can truly support without a risk of unintended consequences. Prolly 'cause they fear, with some justification, that the progressive candidate you can truly support will not be a Democrat.

It's just cynical as all hell.

To help make IRV a reality, eliminate the spoiler dilemma, and break our nation's political system out of the lesser-of-two-evils trap currently ensnaring it, please visit fairvote.org

Patrick Meighan

Culver City, CA

My favorite part of the exchange is here (with chuffah edited out):

GG: Did you support the Bond compromise?

MH: No, I did not.

GG: Well, the reason I'm asking is because I've read the Bond compromise -- that you said you opposed on June 9th-- and compared it to the final bill that passed on July 9th that you said you supported, and I don't see any differences, substantial or otherwise... What changed in the interim?

MH: A number of things - first of all there's the provisions requiring the inspector general's audit...

GG: Let me just stop you for a minute, because actually there was an audit provision, and in fact the letter that you signed on June 9th said that -- quote: "The Bond proposal does incorporate a few improvements, including an audit of illegal warrantless surveillance, and a provision reaffirming that FISA is the exclusive means by which foreign intelligence surveillance can be lawfully conducted. But these modest concessions do not offset the vast new unchecked surveillance powers that this bill confers on the government." How is the final bill any different?

MH: I'm not, that letter was signed on to by an organization that I was then working for. I am not prepared to defend the text of that letter.

Got that? Morton Halperin was *President* of the Open Society Policy Institute at the time in which the OSPI signed a letter declaring IG audits to be an insufficient protection of American civil liberties. Now, however, Halperin merely refers to the OSPI as "an organization that I was then working for." You know, the same way that Burger King is an organization that the former fryolater guy was then working for.

There are three possibilities here:

1) Halperin has always felt that IG audits are a sufficient substitute for 4th Amendment protections and Halperin was completely unaware, back in June and earlier, that the Bond compromise contained his precious IG audits, meaning that "one of the most aggressive advocates of privacy protections in the last decades" was completely ignorant of the details of the proposed FISA revision and had spent months opposing it in error.

2) Halperin did not, in June, feel that IG audits are a sufficient substitute for 4th Amendment protections, and then changed his mind for some reason in July, meaning that "one of the most aggressive advocates of privacy protections in the last decades" is willing to sacrifice 4th Amendment protections for some reason of which only he is aware, and in exchange for a provision that only he, in the world of civil libertarians, finds sufficient.

3) Halperin did not then, and does not now, feel that IG audits are a sufficient substitute for 4th Amendment protections, and the current assurances given us by "one of the most aggressive advocates of privacy protections in the last decades" amount to lies.

None of these cast Halperin in a particularly flattering light. If this is one of our nation's most aggressive advocates of privacy protections in the last decades, then no wonder compliance with the 4th Amendment is now optional for the Executive Branch. Our privacy protections are being advocated for by jackasses.

In any event, Halperin should really stop signing letters he's never read, 'cause it just makes him look a real dope.

If there's an unlikely follow-up interview with Halperin, maybe someone can ask him what *other* letters he's signed but not actually read, so we can, in the future, discern between the positions that Halperin actually stands behind and the positions that Halperin opposes but signed on to anyway just for fun, or while drinking or something.

Patrick Meighan

Culver City, CA

Let's do this!

Thanks for getting the ball rolling, Glenn.

Patrick Meighan

Culver City, CA

"...to the extent that the comments of members of our staff are misinterpreted, they shouldn’t be read into as anything otherwise."

I hope--for the sake of the English language and the basic notion of words as a vehicle for the communication of information between humans--that there's some key context omitted before the beginning of this quotation. I'd rather be punched in the neck than have my intelligence insulted the way the above quotation does.

Patrick Meighan

Culver City, CA