This was predictable.
The reactions from the Left ignore the good news coming from Iraq but that doesn’t matter to left leaning pundits who equate destruction in Iraq, with a loss for the US, with a loss for Bush (EVERYTHING revolves around Bush) to a win for (terrorism and) the Left.
Mahablog reports:
I remain skeptical that Iraq or any other non-democratic nation can be forcibly retrofitted with a workable democratic government by outside forces. The argument is that the U.S. turned Japan into a democratic country after World War II; therefore, it should work with Iraq as well. This argument ignores the fact that there are ENORMOUS cultural, sociological, historical, and political differences between post-WWII Japan and current day-Iraq. And (warning: I’m no expert) I understand that the government that emerged in Japan was not as wildly different from what the Japanese were accustomed to as Americans might believe. For centuries under the Shogunate the country was ruled through rigid hierarchy and bureaucratic control, and the emperor was little more than a figurehead. Some argue that’s sorta kinda the way General MacArthur left it in 1949. And Japan had been moving toward democracy on its own in the 1920s before economic and social upheaval shoved it toward militarism. For a time after World War I the nation had a two-party political system and was governed mostly by a prime minister, not the Emperor. Americans have a hazy notion that Japan’s pre-war government was something like a European monarchy and that elections were utterly alien to the Japanese, but this is not so.
So if we eliminate Japan as an example of a new Little Democracy That Could, are there other examples? I can’t think of any.
Gee, how about Germany or Italy?… And, you have to love the arrogance of those with freedom deciding that tyrannical rule is the best case scenario for the other guy! There are quite a few regime heads who would agree with that!
Running Scared has this to say:
Now that a bit of time has passed, however, news reports are increasingly indicating that a number of Iraqis are rather unhappy with the electoral process. In fact, some of the Sunni seem to feel that the competing truckloads of phony ballots coming in to the country to try to elect either the US backed Allawi / Chalabi posse or the Iranian backed theocrats somehow compromised the process and left them out in the cold.
While holding elections was certainly a goal everyone was shooting for, this seems like pretty big news too, eh? So I’m sure that the big right wing bloggers will be all over the story. Or perhaps not.
Captain Ed doesn’t appear to have noticed, but rather seems to be caught up in his proof that Saddam had WMDs. Unfortunately for Ed, they were the WMDs he had during the Iraq – Iran war in the 80’s. We already knew about those, but thanks.
Well, I’m sure Michelle Malkin will be on top of this breaking story. Ooops… she seems to have missed it too. But don’t worry, she’s still busy complaining about how awful the New York Times is for pointing out that our president has been breaking the law.
Perhaps Powerline? Ah, at last! An article on the Iraq elections. Oh, wait… that’s not about electoral fraud. It’s about the benefits of spreading democracy in the Middle East.
Why the Left is so paranoid about election fraud, when it is the Left that overwhelmingly gets prosecuted and convicted for election fraud is beyond me!
And, I wonder if Running Scared has ever heard of Instapundit? Perhaps, Iraq the Model, Publius Pundit, Austin Bay, etc.?
As Iraq decends more and more into chaos, we will hear less and less about it. The protests of thousands will be reduced to a single new bite on the evening news. The fact that the factions have begun arming themselves for civil war will be slipped into the end of an article, an afterthought. And our President will mark progress not by how many Iraqis lay dead in the streets, but by how many troops he’ll bring home right before the midterm elections. “Victory” in Iraq is not victory for Iraq; rather, it’s a victory for this Presidency. It’s being victorious in this great charade. It’s tricking America into believing Iraq is a successful democracy, when we’ve left the nation in shambles.
So, while Bush may want us to bask in the glow of purple fingers and move on, some of us will not. Some of us will stay, and follow the true consequences of this election.
We will see. As Iraq continues to make progress, we will see who covers the news and who continues to ignore (MSM).
Skippy the Bushy Kangaroo sees more death and wishes a Merry Christmas.
I do like reasoned Donklephant’s take, though.
