Informed Speculation

…is not, of course, the midterm elections, but rather the fact that the New York Times is bringing down the TimesSelect subscriber wall for one week only! As a sample of what we’ve been missing, here’s Bob Herbert:

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.

Voters will head to the polls tomorrow for the most important off-year election in recent memory. But instead of a concerted effort to make it easier for Americans to vote, the trend in recent years has been to make it harder, through legal means and otherwise.

Please…God help us. Few things in life are easier than voting. And the trend has been to make it even easier, with Moter Voter Registration, electronic voting machines, early voting at dozens of locations in every city, and a slew of educational outreach programs.

Here’s the plain, blunt truth: if you’re too stupid to vote, you probably shouldn’t get out of bed.

Somebody put that subscriber wall back up, stat!…