Politics Blog

Imagine if these Iraqi elections had been held before the US elections. They would have helped President Bush immensely. Over a year ago, I made just such a suggestion:

And think of the spectacle! All the world’s TV cameras would cover Iraqis voting in the first free elections in the Arab world. Neighboring Iranians would hanker for some real democracy of their own. The new Iraqi government would have legitimacy, having been elected by the people, and the “resistance’s” claims would ring increasingly hollow. President Bush could refer, in his Republican National Convention speech, to the first free elections in Arab history. He could make a very direct link between liberating Iraq and winning the War on Terror by bringing freedom and democracy to the middle-east.

If elections could be held successfully in Iraq by the middle of next year, it would mean a complete rout of defeatists, anti-Americans and Democrats. This is one instance where good policy and good politics intersect admirably.

That didn’t happen, of course. I guess the Bush administration didn’t want to risk having elections before the conditions for success were reasonably guaranteed.

But the president will still get a bounce out of this. As for the upcoming political situation in Iraq, I predicted that too, over a year ago:

In every part of the world, ethnic/racial/religious minorities vote monolithically, whileethnic/racial/religious majorities split their votes. Sunnis constitute about 20 percent of the Iraqi population. The Kurds constitute another 20 percent. When you look at those numbers, it’s apparent that the only ideas that will win in Iraq are ideas backed by cross-sectarian majorities, i.e. “moderate” ideas. Fears of an extremist government may be overstated.

-- PoliPundit

John Kerry is on Meet the Press and here’s what he just said: “No one in the United States should try to over-hype this election.”

UPDATE: And now he just said, “I think this election is important. I was for the election taking place.”

He was for it before he was against it.

Why is this guy on Meet the Press? He’s the losing presidential candidate. His party lost seats in the Senate and the House. They now have virtually zero influence on anything. Condi Rice was just confirmed, despite yet another “contentious, but futile protest vote” by Kerry and Barbara Boxer, his colleague from the X-Files wing of her so-called party. The last person whose opinion counts is John Kerry.

UPDATE 2: Caught up with the rest of the interview on my TiVo. Kerry is so dour and negative that I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have him as president for 4 years.

Also, several months after Kerry’s Christmas in Cambodia lie was first exposed, Tim Russert became the first member of the lying liberal media to press Kerry about it. Kerry said that he was on the Cambodian border on Christmas Eve 1968. However, he said that he had gone into Cambodia at another date with some CIA people. He even stuck to the story of the magic hat.

Russert pressed Kerry to sign Form 180 and release his military records. Kerry promised to do so. We’ll hold him to that.

I’ll link to the transcript when it’s available.

UPDATE 3: Transcript. Key excerpt:

MR. RUSSERT: Many people who’ve been criticizing you have said: Senator, if you would just do one thing and that is sign Form 180, which would allow historians and journalists complete access to all your military records. Thus far, you have gotten the records, released them through your campaign. They say you should not be the filter. Sign Form 180 and let the historians…

SEN. KERRY: I’d be happy to put the records out. We put all the records out that I had been sent by the military. Then at the last moment, they sent some more stuff, which had some things that weren’t even relevant to the record. So when we get–I’m going to sit down with them and make sure that they are clear and I am clear as to what is in the record and what isn’t in the record and we’ll put it out. I have no problem with that.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you sign Form 180?

SEN. KERRY: But everything, Tim…

MR. RUSSERT: Would you sign Form 180?

SEN. KERRY: Yes, I will.

UPDATE 4: Video clip here.

-- PoliPundit

Tom Wolfe says that President Bush’s vision merely extends the Monroe Doctrine:

At bottom, the notionof a sanctified Western Hemisphere depended upon its separation from the rest of the world by two vast oceans, making intrusions of any sort obvious. The ICBM’s - soon the Soviet Union and other countries had theirs - shrank the world in a military sense. Then long-range jet aircraft, satellite telephones, television and the Internet all, in turn, did the job socially and commercially. By Mr. Bush’s Inauguration Day, the Hemi in Hemisphere had long since vanished, leaving the Monroe Doctrine with - what? - nothing but a single sphere … which is to say, the entire world.

For the mission - the messianic mission! - has never shrunk in the slightest … which brings us back to the pretty preambles and the solemn rhetorical throat-clearing … the parts always omitted from the textbooks as superfluous. “America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one,” President Bush said. He added, “From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth.”

David Gelernter, the scientist and writer, argues that “Americanism” is a fundamentally religious notion shared by an incredibly varied population from every part of the globe and every conceivable background, all of whom feel that they have arrived, as Ronald Reagan put it, at a “shining city upon a hill.” God knows how many of them just might agree with President Bush - and Theodore Roosevelt - that it is America’s destiny and duty to bring that salvation to all mankind.

As a recent legal immigrant, I know exactly what he means. Today, America’s shining light has transformed not just Iraq, but the entire middle east. It’s only a matter of time before people across the region clamor for more freedom. And they’ll get it too.

-- PoliPundit

President Bush to speak at 1 PM Eastern.

UPDATE: And don’t miss today’s special edition of Special Report with Brit Hume at 6 PM Eastern.

-- PoliPundit

A commenter made a good point about the blue ink, which prevents repeat voting:

remember if we tried that in WA, WI, OH or PA the ACLU would accuse people of stigmatizing those who voted, or intimidating voters..or some other nonsense

-- PoliPundit

Evan Bayh is a popular two-term Democratic Senator from Indiana. He won re-election in 2004 with 62% of the vote at the same time that President Bush was carrying the Hoosier State with 60% of the vote. Bayh is also a two-term Governor of Indiana. He was seriously considered for the Vice Presidential nomination in 2000 and 2004, but pro-abortion groups told both Democratic Presidential candidates that they would not accept a Vice Presidential nominee opposed to partial-birth abortion.

However given the present weakness of the Democratic Party in the red states and the increasing mental illness of blue state Democrats, it would seem only natural that Bayh would be a strong Presidential candidate. But to get to the nomination, he would have to appeal to the far-left base of his party. Robert Novak reports that Bayh’s vote against Condoleeza Rice is the first-step in an appeal to the liberal wing of his party. Bayh seems to ignore the fact that a liberal voting record will make it all-too-easy for Republicans to tie him to Kennedy and Kerry, and family history should teach him that a liberal voting record can result in early retirement in the Hoosier State.

-- Alexander K. McClure

Today is the anniversary of the Tet Offensive, when ultra-liberal CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite decided to openly side with the Vietnamese Communists.

Current ultra-liberal CBS anchorman Dan Rather, by contrast, has to grit his teeth and report the good news. Thanks to fact-checking by the New Media, if Rather lied like Cronkite did, he’d become even more of a laughingstock than he already is.

-- PoliPundit

I think this one sums up the day. If you prefer something more upbeat, you can watch KurdSAT TV online, which is continuously showing videos of people voting.

UPDATE: The Old York Times changed the caption on that photo. It used to be something like, “People gather outside a polling place in Sadr city as blood runs down a gutter after a mortar attack killed three people.” Now, it’s been changed to “A mortar attack at a polling station in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad killed at least three people.”

Notice the subtle bias. Instead of highlighting the people who’re voting, the new caption highlights the mortar attack.

UPDATE 2: Then there’s this:

Best anecdote of the day: in Qadissiyah, voters waiting in line fled when an insurgent arrived on the scene with an RPG. He fired and missed. An hour later, the same voters–with more neighbors, friends and family, came back to finish the job. That’s why the bad guys lost today.

Sort of puts the fevered conspiracy theories of Ohio voter “intimidation” in perspective, doesn’t it?

(link via InstaPundit)

-- PoliPundit

The results are early, but even the Associated Press is starting to acknowledge the obvious:

“Iraqi officials said turnout among the 14 million eligible Iraqi voters appeared higher than the 57 percent that had been predicted, although it would be some time before any turnout figure was confirmed.

“In the United States, turnout hovered in the low 50 percent range for years and only this year squeaked to 60 percent.

“Considering that Iraqis voted in dangerous conditions, and Americans don’t, the turnout numbers speak volumes, according to some pollsters.

“When public expression means so much to you that you will vote under the threat of death, that is significant,” said Frank Luntz, a pollster who often works for Republicans. “That demonstrates how much they want democracy.”

“A higher percentage of eligible Iraqis voted Sunday, in their first free election in a half-century, than Americans typically do in an off-year election, according to Luntz.

“In America, the greatest threat to voting is standing in line for an hour,” he said. “In Iraq, these people risked their lives and more than half were willing to do so.”

“High turnout would be an amazing statement and an amazing validation of the degree to which people want to establish democracy in that country,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake”

Polipundit showed the photo of a woman whose finger is inked, proving she voted. I’d say she and millions like her were giving Terror and Tyranny the finger.

-- DJ Drummond

I recently received an e-mail from a buddy of mine – “K-Dawg,” as he’ll be known for purposes of this blog.

He’s a Desert Storm veteran, a commissioned officer, and a U.S. Army Reservist, who recently was called back into action – and thereby out of his cushy job beating plaintiff’s attorneys senseless down in Southern California. (Kidding; about the “cushy” part, that is.) He’ll soon be shipping out to one of Bill Clinton’s favorite bombing targets – Kosovo – in order to assist with peacekeeping duties there.

And he’s got some things to say about various issues upon which McGovern-era stoners, in academia, and trust-fund liberals, in the media, have been ruminating:

I’m here in Germany preparing to go into Kosovo with my unit. I just read Polipundit and saw how Al Franken goes on a lot of USO tours. I appreciate his concern, I guess, though he seems to think we are committing unspeakable crimes. I think I can live without his comedy stylings.

Hey, active duty sure isn’t what you hear about in the media. I’ve never heard a serious complaint about our 18 months back in the Army – not one. We’ll be peacekeeping in Kosovo, which is kind of our third big theater after Iraq and Afghanistan. Back door draft? Hell, we volunteered – and many of us are disppointed only that we aren’t going to Baghdad instead.

Let’s talk about the undertrained, underequipped reservists I’m always reading about. Where are these guys? This is day 115 of training – and our sixth major exercise. If anything, we are overtrained. You should see the number of experts on culture, on language (I had 40 hours of Albanian!) and on military skills they have training us (our lead trainer is a retired four star general!).

And equipment? My complaint is that there’s too much – we have top of the line cold weather gear (all Gortex), brand new improved body armor and all sorts of other stuff – I needed another duffel bag to haul it all.

Is it perfect? Of course not – it’s the Army! But I’m better trained and equipped going onto this peacekeeping mission than I was when I was an active duty soldier deployed from my base in Germany into the Persian Gulf in 1990. And I know the guys going into the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan have it even better.

So that nonsense you read about some sort of broken Army is just that – nonsense. Hey, my butt is on the line and I’m not complaining (there’s still the potential for a real mess in Kosovo) – you can take that as you will, but this is one United States Army officer that’s proud and ready. And my buddies and my troops are likewise.

So, stick that in your shot glass, Whiskey Ted.

-- Jayson