The Iraqi Local Elections and the President Who Shall Not Be Named

Vocal Minority ^ | 2/18/09 | EricTheRed_VocalMinority

[EricTheRed_VocalMinority]

It’s slightly embarrassing to write about this event two weeks after the fact, but it’s even more so not to bring it up at all: On January 31, there were local elections all throughout Iraq.

News of the elections didn’t catch the attention of most of the mainstream media. I myself had heard about it only from a WABC-radio news broadcast. CNN, to their credit, was on it, reporting on the 27th that “About 14,000 candidates will be competing for 440 provincial council seats in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces”. That’s fantastic!

As for the rest of the MSM, they essentially swept the story under the rug. Was it because it was George W. Bush who made these elections possible, and not their messiah? Maybe they had other things to do, like pooh pooh the “treasonous” and “unpatriotic” behavior Republicans were exhibiting by opposing the stimulus package pork bill and by mentioning that practically every one of President Golden Calf’s cabinet appointees was either a tax cheat, a participant in some underhanded dealing, or both.

Anyway, the elections went generally without a hitch and, more importantly, generally without violence. (A website called Global Voices has collected entries from bloggers in Iraq on the elections, mostly positive, some critical.)

My desire to bring up this story today came from catching up on Dennis Prager podcasts. On Monday’s first hour (i.e., Presidents’ Day) Prager discussed a C-SPAN poll where historians ranked all U.S. 42 presidents (Note to Barack Obama: Grover Clevelend was president for two non-consecutive terms). George W. Bush ranked #36, which may or may not surprise many.

But what Prager found most glaring was that Bush came in dead last in foregin relations,

[Badeye]

Fox news covered it extensively.

[EricTheRed_VocalMinority]

Well, that goes without saying - but I’ll correct that on my blog post. Thx

[Badeye]

No problemo.