Electile Dysfunction, Part 2

Usually, Debra J. Saunders plays the part of heterodox conservative fairly well. Oh, she heels at the right time and barks loudly at the temerity of those who would dare to criticize the perfection of C-Plus Augustus (another Charles Pierce gem). But she's pro-choice, pro-gay-rights (so long as they don't get too uppity about it, but it's a start), and quite sensible on the subject of education.

Today she's just out of her depth, and intellectually dishonest on a breathtakingly unprofessional level. She deserves a good sound fisking. Let's do just that.

THE WORLD IS changing. After the -- all bow -- international community warned that Middle Easterners could not govern themselves, millions of Iraqis braved the threat of violence to go out to the polls Sunday to participate in their country's first free election in almost 50 years.

This is standard Saunders. Always with the gratuitous swipe at the "international community" -- which of course means the usual platoon of Lucky Pierres, berets cocked jauntily, smoking unfiltered cigarettes and laughing at American monolingualism in that superior way they have. Long story short: they think they're soooo fucking smart. Well, we just showed them, didn't we?

Well, no, we didn't. The election was the fucking day before yesterday. It will be weeks until we know who won what. We do know that turnout was abysmally low in the Sunni regions, where the threat of terror was highest. This means that either the Sunnis lose out on power-sharing and continue their terrorist insurgency, or the Shia suck it up and let them in, which will not play well with their base, who have been pushed around by the Sunni minority for decades.

As for the world changing, no shit, Sherlock. It's not changing in the way she means, though. We'll discuss this in depth in the near future, but the quickie analysis is that 5% of the world cannot hold the other 95% at bay indefinitely. We've done it this long with economic and military might, both of which are waning, even as those of our nearest rivals -- China and India -- are rapidly accelerating. See how you don't give a shit about the "international community" in about 15 years, dear.

Hmmmm. All the realpolitik experts and elder statesmen who called on Iraq's interim government to stall the Jan. 30 election were wrong.

Even better: That bumbling hick, George W. Bush, was right to ignore them.

Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse. Back in the grim '90s, Saunders was all up in that "feel your pain" bullshit constantly trickling out both sides of Clinton's burger-hole. She despised it, and constantly made fun of its touchy-feely ramifications. Apparently now going with your gut is preferable to, say, reading a goddamn newspaper once in a while. Either way, you think you're so fucking smart, doncha liberals?

It's as if your mom finally found a way to get paid to bitch in print, isn't it?

"The terrorists tried everything in their power to derail it and they did not succeed,'' crowed Hamoudi Al-Bander, an Orinda physician who fled Iraq in 1973. A U.S. citizen, Al-Bander voted in the Iraqi election Sunday in Washington, D.C., one of five U.S. polling centers.

Oh, well, if one guy who left thirty years ago calls it good, who are we to dispute it? This is billed as if it's the definitive observation of the whole thing. Shit, my great-grandfather left Ireland in the midst of great violence and enormous political and economic strife, but he never pretended that things weren't exactly what they were, nor did he pretend that all things could magically turn on one singular event.

You always hope, but hope untempered by reason and common sense is just daydreaming. The fact of the matter is, there were 260 attacks throughout the country, despite unprecedented security measures. And the attackers, being cowards, are naturally just going to wait until things go back to a dull roar.

His two sisters, who live in Baghdad, went to the polls as well. Suicide bombers may make them afraid to go grocery shopping, Al-Bander explained, but the election was too important to keep them at home. Al-Bander was particularly proud of the number of Iraqi women who went to the polls.

Fine. Call them up in a month, and see if they're out grocery shopping yet. I hope so, but I'm betting no. Hell, make it three months -- these insurgents seem like pretty sore losers.

Estimates of voter turnout -- ranging from 60 percent to 75 percent -- show that the number of Iraqis who went to the polls was comparable to U.S. turnout in November's presidential race (60.7 percent) and much higher than voter participation in many recent presidential contests.

Which is something every American ought to be ashamed of themselves for, as I pointed out in an earlier post. It is simply unacceptable that we sit on our asses and accept fate, while Iraqis and Ukrainians have the balls to stand up for what they believe in.

In the meantime, turnout numbers are just guesses, and they've been declining. Here is a seemingly fair pre-election breakdown by ethnic/religious/geographic lines. Either way, if the final estimates end up unacceptably low, watch the trumpets suddenly get muted, until we can find yet another V-I Day to get all hopped up on. Bottom line -- for now, we just don't know for sure.

Not that Sen. John Kerry seemed particularly impressed in an interview on "Meet the Press" Sunday morning. Showing himself once again adept at seizing every failure and ignoring every victory, Kerry warned that, "No one in the United States should try to overhype this election."

Asked if the world community would see the Iraqi election as legitimate, Kerry replied that it had "a kind of legitimacy, I mean, it's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote."

Ever get the feeling Kerry is rooting for failure in Iraq?

This is the most nauseating piece of crap in the whole piece. It's not as if Kerry was the only one attempting to downplay things (I too saw him on Press The Meat; Potato-Head Russert barely glossed the subject, and Kerry had precious little to say about it at all -- he was his usual cautiously optimistic self).

Chuck Hagel has also been on record as downplaying the irrational exuberance card. In fact, right up until their strategy of lowering expectations proved successful, the administration itself had been downplaying expectations. Now you can see why -- it's a no-lose proposition for them. A smaller-than-anticipated bloodbath is a relief after we've been priming ourselves for months for large-scale election-day massacres.

But of course John Kerry has to be the skunk at the garden party, right? Christ. These people must get paid by the pant-load.

Web sites for peacenik groups -- Moveon.org, answercoalition.org -- that were quick to pounce on the administration when things went sour in Iraq -- were oddly silent Monday, as of my deadline.

Yeah. Some people thought it might be prudent to wait more than twelve fucking hours before acting like they knew something about everything. Imagine that.

I'll say this much: Silent is better than petulant.

How the hell would she know?

In an odd juxtaposition, the left now pooh-poohs building democracies from nations plagued with ethnic or religious strife, while President Bush, once a committed isolationist, has become the chieftain of nation-building.

First Afghanistan, now Iraq.

Sure you want to go there? How's Afghanistan these days, anyway? Since the action's in Iraq now, most major media organizations just retain a stringer in Kabul, if they have anyone there at all. Last we heard, the warlords have retained most of the power, Karzai's basically the mayor of Kabul, the Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants are still out there (and probably getting aid and support from local chieftains and ISI/Pakistani Army), and Afghanistan's returned to its former position as the world's #1 producer of opium.

And we've lost interest, because Brad and Jen broke up and Michael Jackson's on trial and....did you see that housewife?!? She looked Desperate!

Al-Bander compares Iraq's new leadership to that of other Middle Eastern countries. Al-Bander argued that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak "is grooming his son" Gamal to succeed him -- the Mubaraks deny this frequently made charge. Syrian President Bashar Assad succeeded his father. As for Jordanian King Abdullah II, "What is his legitimacy?" Al-Bander asks.

Oh, indeed. I hate those countries where power is just passed from crooked father to crooked son, enabled by an enormous propaganda machine and kajillions of dollars. That's just wrong.

Damn you, Egypt! Damn you all to hell!

I ask Al-Bander what he thinks of those who pronounced Iraqis as incapable of ruling themselves. "I think it is racism," he answers. "What amazes me, it is coming from liberals."

Nonsense. It's a tribal culture, very clan-based. So is Afghanistan. There is nothing racist about observing this simple fact.

The problem is, democracy requires more than just a voting process. Saddam Hussein had a voting process. As Saunders points out, so does theocratic Iran. Democracy requires institutions, based on equality under law. It also requires, as Fareed Zakaria correctly pointed out (linked in an earlier post), an economy based on something besides oil.

What happens in a clan-based culture that suddenly gets a glut of petro-dollars is that the system of ethnic and religious patronage (and concomitant violence and oppression) gets perpetuated at the expense of the institutions we take for granted. Why the hell do you think the entire Middle East is the way it is? Because stultified, oppressive cultures suddenly got huge influxes of oil money, and the power that goes with that. Next thing ya know, ol' Abdul's a millionaire.

That's an oversimplification, but you look at every petro-power in the region, and they're run like enormous country clubs. They don't produce anything but oil, and they're controlled by fabulously wealthy families keeping the masses at bay with a mixture of fundamentalism and make-work money.

Even Brent Scowcroft has pointed these obvious facts out in the past. Brent Scowcroft, why do you hate freedom and democracy?

That's what Bush-hating has come to in America 2005. The Iraqi people risk their lives to vote for a new government and self-rule. In response, John Kerry says the election has "a kind of legitimacy," while anti-war opponents [sic] can't bring themselves to acknowledge that the elections in Iraq brought light and hope to a once-repressed people.

This is what Bush-love has come to in America 2005. No mention of WMD, of original rationales, of ever-moving goalposts, of cynical politicians doing exactly what they want and telling the rest of the world to fuck off. No mention if this grand feat could have been accomplished without sacrificing tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Nope. If you like this, you're gonna love tomorrow's State Of The Union speech. Eight hundred different ways of saying "we told you so", when they, in fact, did not tell us so.

Eliot Weinberger remembers what we were told. Don't let them just push it down the memory hole, like every other goddamned thing they've done.

Finally, this graph charts the US public's steadily declining trust and increasing skepticism in Bush's handling of this war. So don't put it all on John Kerry and Barbara Boxer, dammit. Joe Sixpack doesn't trust your stupid ass either.