"Grate Expectations" - Commentary by Tony Seton

Grate Expectations

No wonder the media give the Bushies a break. The Bushies make their work effortless, feeding them stories they barely have to tweak to report. Indeed, the more prescient reporters could write their stories days, even weeks, in advance. Sort of like the Mad Libs of my youth, when you had only to fill in some blanks with colors, numbers, and adverbs and bang-zoom you were done.

For instance, the headline Sunday morning from Condosleezza Rice, that voting in Iraq had exceeded expectations. Boy is that a surprise. Give her credit, she did acknowledge that there would be difficult days ahead. That was so Americans wouldn’t have any untoward expectations about our 150,000 soldiers coming home any time soon from a country that despite the turn-out is still at war.

While I take my hat off to the Iraqis who voted, braving dozens of terrorist attacks that killed dozens of people, the fact is that the election was something of a farce. As John Kerry noted, "It is hard to say that something is legitimate when whole portions of the country can't vote." Not to mention that the names of the candidates were kept secret, they couldn’t campaign, and the voting places were hidden until election day.

Iraq is in trouble. We’ve got the red states and the blue states; they’ve got the Kurds, the Sunnis and Shias. And a whole slew of well-armed Islamic psychotics whose preference is for 73 virgins and a seat next Allah. Has anyone counted up the number of suicide bombers over the past coupla years? That would give you a clue as to the future of Iraq.

I’m all for elections -- people all over the world should determine their own future -- but democracy does not come from the barrel of a gun. The results of the balloting in Iraq will be suspect on their face. Only the Kurd’s victory in the north will make any sense, and they wouldn’t let anyone interfere regardless of the outcome. Meanwhile, the Sunnis -- the minority who controlled the country in often brutal fashion -- were boycotting from the get-go.

So the U.S.-puppet Shia will get the most votes but no mandate. The bombings will continue. They still won’t have running water and only a few hours of electricity, where it is available at all. Washington will insist they have the resources to train enough Iraqis to bring peace to their country, but only the American media will believe it.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.