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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (97770)	1/30/2005 8:40:26 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793725

Hewitt - The early estimate of 72% participation means that more than 10.000,000 Iraqis have cast ballots. This is apparently insufficient to impress faculty at the University of Michigan, but it is a sweeping victory for freedom. The Belmont Club writes: "None of this means that the insurgency in Iraq has finally been beaten down or that only plain sailing lies ahead. But the voter turnouts certainly suggests that the electoral results will stick . It will be very hard to de-legitimize the whole process or cast aside the ballots as if the elections had never happened; not after the sacrifice that the Shi'ites, Kurds and the Sunnis (the risk was all the greater for them) have endured simply to exercise their choice." Wretchard kept a clipping file, and in it is the assessment of U of M professor Juan Cole from two weeks ago: "'These elections are a joke,' said Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle East history at the University of Michigan. 'The Bush administration has created the worst possible advertisement for democracy because the perception across the Middle East is that democracy means you get a country where everything is out of control,' he said." The votes of 10,000,000 in the face of violence and threats of violence can be called many things, but "a joke" does not come quickly to mind. But then again, tenured faculty rarely encounter courage, and he can be forgiven for the failure to recognize that with which he has little if any experience. Sunni participation is low, but as many have pointed out, the participation rate of whites in the first Zimbabwe elections or by Afrikaners in the first post-apartheid election in South Africa mattered not at all to the legitimacy of the vote. Whichever government emerges from this polling will be the authoritative voice of the Iraqi people. That government may ask the U.S. to leave, and it may ask the U.S. to stay. Either way, it will be an authentic expression of Iraqi nationhood. Those who churlishly denigrate today's vote really do identify themselves as blind ideologues of the worst sort. Superb coverage from Instapundit, RogerLSimon, Powerline, and Friends of Democracy. I turned on the television when I got up this morning and after just a couple of minutes concluded that I would learn nothing from CNN or the other cable shows beyond the death toll of 25. The blogopshere has rendered the nets almost irrelevant on big stories like this one. These four blogs will provide you with many more links and thus information than any combo of the nets. Fast and trustworthy versus old and distrusted. So I unwrapped the Sunday Los Angeles Times. The cover story on the magazine? "Who's Dying in Our War." Given that these stories are planned and their covers budgeted weeks and months in advance, can anyone imagine the thought process that accompanied this selection for this morning? A story on the sacrifice of the nearly 1,500 Americans killed and 10,000+ wounded is almost always appropriate, unless it isn't intended to be a story on their sacrifice and the suffering of their families, but is instead a crude manipulation ala Michael Moore of grief and loss to serve a political end that exploits that sacrifice to diminish it. That's my reaction to this cover this morning. Some jerk or jerks at the Los Angeles Times decided to use the death of Americans to detract from the victory they secured over fascism and terror. They knew it would be a day of celebration in Iraq, but rather than celebrate with the Iraqi people, they chose today to run a story designed to diminish American appreciation of the achievement won at such a high cost. The Tribune Company has experienced continuing declines in circulation over the past few months and "circulation revenues were down 6 percent, mainly due to declines in Los Angeles and New York," according to the company. One explanation offered by the company is that it has been hit by the "do not call" list. I suggest that in Los Angeles it has been hit by former subscriber disgust with the "do not stop insulting the readership" ethic that puts Bush hatred above everything else, and does not hesitate to stoop so low as to exploit American dead on the very day the result of their sacrifice is most obvious. An Iraqi ex-pat who had voted early on Friday at the former Marine Corps Air Station, El Toro, called my program which was broadcasting from the site of the voting as he drove home to Phoenix. He struggled through his emotion to thank repeatedly the men and women of the American military that had freed his country and especially those who had died doing so. It is incredible that it is far easier to find Iraqis who understand how to salute the American war dead than it is American journalists.