Back, for now

I want to thank everyone for sticking around last week while I was busy. I’m hoping this week I will have more time.

As many already know the Iraqi constitution appears to have been ratified by those who voted in Iraq over the weekend. Not a big surprise. I’m sure many right wing bloggers have already begun announcing to the world that the elections are yet proof again as to why Bush was right and why everyone else is wrong. Back in January during the first elections the same thing happened, it was called the tipping point, the evidence that Bush knew what he was doing all along. Many then declared Iraq, including Bush to be a democracy. It’s now October, seven months since the first elections and thousands more are dead and the “progress” is still being overshadowed by the bloodshed.

As I have said many times, elections are not democracy; and even with that, democracy cannot be achieved with an insurgency mounting 50 attacks a-day throughout the country. When people talk about democracy and fighting a war, they are talking about two totally different things. Neither can be achieved in the presence of either. The confusion of this whole war is that one second we are disarming WMD, and the next second we are nation-building a budding democracy, while the existence of both causes us to lose focus on the first directive of fighting a war.

Also, as many already know, Judy Miller is out of jail. Miller was regarded as an expert in journalism on the issue of WMD. From the beginning, actually throughout the 90s, Miller always maintained that Iraq had WMD. To her defense, so did everyone in the entire world. Finally admitting that she was wrong about WMD and that the intelligence was bad, she finds herself involved in a White House leak that could very well drag this country through a Nixon-like scandal. Over the weekend the Times ran stories about her jail time, release and her involvement in the leak scandal. If she were covering up for a liberal or a Democrat, I don’t think the White House would be so passionate about her performance.

Last week sometime I wrote about George Will and his op-ed for the Washington Post that blasted Bush and his selection of Miers. Again Will stays on his disgruntled path in last weeks Newsweek and makes charges for a wider complaint against Bush, his big government and his lobbyist controlled conservatism. I’ll have more on this later, because like I said earlier, if Bush loses Will (which I think he has), then he’s lost the conservatives.

Since I can’t find a link (here it is, thanks to girl on the blog) to Will’s article I will quote the last paragraph and maybe later today I will come across a link:

Conservatives are not supposed to be cuddly, or even particularly nice. They are, however, supposed to be competent. And to know that scarcity- of money, virtue, wisdom, competence, everything- forces choices. Furthermore, they are supposed to have an unsentimental commitment to meritocracy and excellence. The fact that none of those responsible for the postwar planning, or lack thereof, in Iraq have been sacked suggests- no, shouts- that in Washington today there is no serious penalty for serious failure. Hence the multiplication of failures.

And I would only add: unless of course something of the opposition party is at hand. I'll have more later.

Tags:
Judith Miller, Miers, George Will, politics