Thursday, June 16, 2005

The basic requirements of democracy


The Bushies have been dissing the Iranian electoral process, which Condi calls “illegitimate” and Shrub says “ignores the basic requirements of democracy.” That’s right: George Bush expressed concern for the basic requirements of democracy. With a straight (but chimp-like) face. I assume he means Fox News and the Swift Boat Veterans.

Which is not to say that there isn’t cause for grave concerns, just that those concerns would be better expressed by someone else, indeed by anyone else. Still, if they’re going to intervene ham-handedly in another country’s elections the day before they take place, they should at least make suggestions for the appropriate response, and they don’t. Should Iranians boycott the process or, as they told Afghans and Iraqis to do in elections that were no less flawed, should they show the strength of the universal desire for freedom and blah blah blah by standing in line to vote (segregated by gender, of course), and hoping for the best?

(Update: Elizabeth “No, that’s his other daughter” Cheney, the “democracy tsar shah” tells VOA’s Persian tv service that the US “believes in supporting the bravery of the people of Iran.” Again, how are the Iranian people supposed to take that?)

The US used napalm in Iraq. This isn’t really news. Two years ago, for example, I linked to this story, which said the same thing. But no one ever follows up, and they won’t this time either.

The AP reports that two college students from California were arrested in Paris, posing nude for pictures near the Arc de Triomphe. The sentence I like: “A bet was said to have been involved.”

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