Posted on 02/07/2005 7:52:58 AM PST by knighthawk
When did we get so cynical? What has caused so many to doubt good things that they see, even when those good things are impossible to ignore?
I speak of the recent -- and awesome -- elections in Iraq. For months there were those who stated with conviction, wrote with assertion, or claimed to have inside knowledge that those elections would never take place. They told us that Iraq was about to enter into a civil war. They told us that things were just "too dicey" to even think about Iraqis getting out to vote in an election. And, they told us that -- were an election to be attempted -- it would draw too few voters to even count as legitimate.
All that was wrong.
And all those who told us those things were wrong.
The elections were held. There was no civil war. And millions of Iraqis voted.
Despite being warned by the Islamo-fascists that they would be killed -- shot or beheaded or blown up -- if they tried to vote, the Iraqis voted. They dared to walk out of their homes and down the streets, past bombed-out buildings and into polling places that had been marked for attack by the terrorists. Some of the brave Iraqis walked for miles to vote. They stood in long lines waiting to cast their ballots. They stuck their pointer fingers into purple ink as they voted -- both to prove they had voted and to prevent them from voting more than once.
After that, they danced in the streets. They sang and danced in the streets and celebrated that they were Iraqis. One man told reporters to stop identifying his people as different tribes, but to call them what they consider themselves to be now: one people, Iraqi people.
The polling places were guarded by Iraqi soldiers who had been trained by American and coalition forces.
The Iraqi soldiers did a solid job. They kept the people safe as they voted. They kept the terrorists out.
It was good news for all to see and hear.
But what did the cynics say? Without skipping a beat, they completely reversed themselves. They said that the elections -- the elections they said would never take place -- were the easy part. They said the hard part is yet to come.
No one said it would be easy to take a country from a brutal dictator to democracy without trouble. But no one ever dreamt the Iraqis would -- in huge numbers -- turn out to vote in a historic election that would turn the running of the country back to them and give them a voice in their government for the first time in many of their lives.
Yes, the Islamo-fascists will continue to try to disrupt a new government. They'll continue their murderous attacks. They'll try to kill the moderate ayatollah in Iraq because he doesn't hold to their fanatic fringe Muslim beliefs. They tried to kill him recently, but, instead, killed two of his attendants.
They'll attempt to murder and kidnap and threaten. But each week the people of Iraq, tasting the first delicious experience of freedom, will make it harder on them.
World events will make it harder on them -- including those which are televised.
If you watched President Bush's State of the Union address on Wednesday night, you saw a moment in history take place. You saw an Iraqi woman, whose father had been killed by Saddam Hussein, embrace the mother of a young Marine who had been killed trying to free the Iraqi people from that tyrant.
It was a moment that caught everyone by surprise and brought many to tears.
Being a mother myself, I'll admit I was one of them.
It was a spontaneous act as the Iraqi reached up and put her arms around the American and the two women held each other. It was moving as well to learn that the two had to unhook themselves from the fallen Marine's dog tag, which got caught in the Iraqi woman's sleeve, keeping the two women together even longer.
The entire room burst into emotional applause and continued an ovation until the women sat down.
These were women from two ends of the world, brought together through grief and gratitude.
It was a historic moment.
But there was a cynic out there. This one named Ronnie Reagan.
Quizzed on TV, the late president's son opined that he thought the embrace looked as though it could have been planned, staged by some creative political operative.
This little man with the annoying voice and pinched face, who would never be on television were it not for his accident of birth, had the audacity to say that an Iraqi woman, who has been fighting for freedom for years, and an American woman who recently lost her beloved son in battle in Iraq, showed up just to hug for the cameras.
That's cynicism.
That's blind cynicism.
Ping
Quite the opposite of what his late father would have said.
Has Ron Reagan passed the point where he could reverse himself, wake up, and join the rest of the world, or has he attained "Jane Fonda" status as a lifelond enemy of morality, reality, and America in general? He may have answered that question with his response.
I guess all those dog shows made little Ronnie a perfect fit for MSNBC.
I think there is a different dynamic going on here. Ron Reagan gets face time on talking head TV because of his liberal views. The more outrageous he gets, the more attention and more face time he gets. Dittos for most other liberal commentators.
Which creates a nasty feedback process that removes them further and further from reality.
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