If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gets the single vote of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, does he really need any other votes? It seems to me that the Supreme leader's vote trumps all the paper ballots, exit polls, purple fingers, etc. People are questioning whether the "election" was rigged. But what difference does that make, Ahmadinejad got the vote that he needed.

It did no good for the Iranians to follow that old Chicago election day strategy, "Vote Early and Vote Often". The Supreme Leader could have slept in until noon, then voted. At that point the election was over.

We keep thinking some of those countries that have elections are actually democracies. Iran is but one example; when Egypt's Mohamed Hosni Mubarak wins elections by getting 97% of the vote, do we even bat an eyelash? Or do we care that King Abdullah II doesn't even have to have elections in Jordan? Same in the Emirates and Kuwait. And even though Greece has elections, the military really runs the show there. Do we care? Nope, not so long as they agree to be our "allies" in the Middle East.

Why don't we just do things the way we want to do them here and let those other guys choose whatever political system they like if they seem to be happy?