ALTER-ED STATES: Jonathan Alter was Bush Derangement Syndrome Victim Zero in 2000, when he blurted into an NBC microphone at about 3:30 AM the morning on Wednesday November 8th, that Al Gore be elected president, Electoral College be damned:

The close outcome of Tuesday’s presidential election was remarkable, but one liberal reporter – Newsweek writer and NBC talking head Jonathan Alter – urged that Gore be “certified” as the winner whether or not he has met the Constitutional burden of securing a majority of Electoral College votes. Here’s what Alter told NBC viewers at approximately 3:30 Eastern Time this morning:

“If it turns out that Al Gore wins the popular vote nationally, there will be intense pressure in this country to have him become the President. Most people think the guy with the most votes wins. Recounts are as much an art as a science. You have experts, consultants, who go around the country doing recounts. If the recount came out on behalf of Bush and Bush had lost the popular vote nationally they would go to court, there’d be another recount. It would become endless. And the political pressure would mount very quickly to, to certify Al Gore as, as the winner. Especially since you have a potential conflict of interest here with the Governor of the state that is handling the recount being the brother of Governor Bush.”

Since this was NBC, and MSNBC hadn’t yet transformed itself into Air America with pictures, Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert would attempt to talk Alter down from the ledge, but today on MSNBC, there are no adults around to do so, hence we get Alter claiming, as Allahpundit paraphrases, “Tonight’s MSNBC pre-debate talking point: If Romney wins and ObamaCare is repealed, many more people will die.”

Read on for Allah’s take on medical care in countries in fiscal meltdowns such as Greece, not to mention the death toll in Syria. And as he adds, “Do the civilians mistakenly killed in drone strikes count? Or are we only talking about Americans, like Chris Stevens?”

On the flip-side though, presumably, Romney has now locked up Bill Maher’s endorsement.

No word yet if Obama’s “Science” “Czar” will soon be jumping ship as well.