Bloggledygook

"Plus, your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries."

Jack Chirac told president Bush in a phone conversation that "The participation rate and the good technical organization of the elections were satisfactory."

Say what you want, but the famous silver-tongued French certainly know how to gussy up a phrase, don't they? I can see Jack making the moves on one of the tarts on the Champs d'Elysee, running a hand through his thinning pate, leaning in to fill his Gallic nostrils with sweet Parisian parfum, and whispering, "Ah mademoiselle, your lips are quite average and your legs, your legs, zey are joost like a any uzzer legs. Dunt get me rrrong, cherie, your breasts are like zees morning's puddings, only wis zat skin on top, zat skin zat, fwankly, I could do wissout. But no matter, mon amour, I would like to take you in my harms and make adequate love to you until you beg, or razzer, you request strongly zat I, a man of good technical organization, bring you to a satisfactory climax."

Faced with that kind of sophistication and nuance, how is a cowboy to compete?

What will Progressives do Now?

Speaking of Democrats and liberals and leftists, I have been looking around the Internet at some lefty blogs and sites and lemme tell ya, it ain't real pretty. Even when somebody like Kevin Drum has good things to say, his commenters go off the rails and just sound like a bunch of children throwing a tantrum. I was going to post some links, but, no. Look around if you want. Maybe I'll revisit later today or in a day or two or never. I have little desire to wallow in the muck of those who would rather see Saddam back than give any credence to free, fair elections in the face of terror. I am just too impressed with the Iraqi people and proud of our armed forces and happy for our president and also for Tony Blair and John Howard, steadfast allies and strong leaders.

I will give one Democratic quote here that states things well. From the Bull Moose:

Iraq has become something bigger than a war to topple a tyrant. That nation's future development as a democracy could have the potential to transform a region. Potential is the key word. The outcome of this struggle is by no means certain. And it is incumbent on the new Secretary of State to make a concerted effort to enlist allies in this cause. America can't shoulder this burden virtually alone. This will be her first critical test.

Our European friends have a decision to make. As the old union song goes, "which side are you on?"

Which side, indeed? The elections not only changed the makeup of Middle East politics, but has given the US and the administration a firmer footing with our western allies? Will those allies now come along?

Yet the question that the Moose might ask his fellow Democrats is, "which side are we on?" Do the Dems now follow the Kennedy/Kerry model or will the party realize that Joe Lieberman has been right all along and demonstrates exactly how you would think progressives view liberty and freedom?

What will progressives do now that the Iraqi people have demonstrated that they are able to take control of their destiny and willing to brave bullets and bombs to do it? Where is the soul of the Democratic party? Answering that question will help determine who the next president is liable to be.

 

Suddenly, Howie has a Challenger.

Donnie Fowler got the nod from the executive committee of the Association of State Democratic Chairs to become chairman, dodging, for now, the Howard Dean bullet that was coming straight at the head of the Democratic Party. The nomination will be voted on today by the full Association.

The executive committee voted to recommend Fowler for the chair position that will be voted on next month. He has worked on several campaigns and was forced out of the Clark campaign just before the General's short-lived candidacy crashed, burned and left no survivors. Fowler was lucky to get out, kind of like being kicked off the Titanic just before it set sail. He went on to run the Kerry campaign in Michigan, not exactly a battleground state.

By the way, did anybody catch Clark on the tube over the weekend? Other than the odd spectacle of wearing more makeup than Michael Jackson and looking a little like a fair Barnabas Collins, Clark told Tony Snow that the US should enlist Syria and Iran in helping Iraq after the elections. Snow was a little surprised at the idea, calling it "interesting" and reminding the general that those two countries weren't exactly filled with joy over free elections in Iraq. Clark responded that one should talk to people before you hit them.

Back to Fowler: I suppose to some in the party he is seen as the anti-Dean, less ideological in ways, coming with a ready party pedigree and not as down right crazy. This from the NYT, however, suggests that the nomination was a gesture of respect for Fowler's father, Don Fowler who was DNC chairman who was under the gun after some fund raising shenanigans in the '96 election and was not necessarily a favorite of Clinton henchman Harold Ickes.

Fowler may be a more palatable choice than Dean and much more energetic than Martin Frost. But, as far as I know, Fowler hasn't worked on a winning campaign yet. So I guess that makes him perfect to run the party. Then again, the Dems haven't been very successful lately, have they? So Fowler may at least pose a modicum of hope.

He is tech-savvy, which is what people who aren't tech-savvy call other people who know html. Kind of like Al Gore with credibility. He's seen as a bridge between the old and new and actually may bring some youthful wisdom to a party that has abdicated the highest posts to aging leftists. Maybe we can get back to the party that brought us FDR, Truman and JFK and move forward.

He has a lot of work to do if he gets the job. He has Teddy and Kerry and Boxer to deal with. It won't be easy, if he's serious about getting the party back into American politics. If he ends up being a toady of the Lefty Lobby, he'll just end up working on yet another failed campaign.

24 Hours to Find a Headline, and They Still Can't Get it Right

This is in my "AM Alert" From the Australian, uh, paper, The Age:

The Age Breaking News - am edition Monday January 31, 2005

IRAQ Iraqi attacks deter voters Insurgent action across Iraq keeps voters away from the polls early in the nation's historic bid for a democratic government. Full report Guns point in two directions Timeline: The path to democracy Scott Ritter: How we bought the WMD lie

Here's their lede for tomorrow:

Insurgent action across Iraq keeps voters away from the polls early in the nation's historic bid for a democratic government.

Voting in Iraq's first attempt at democratic elections in half a century opened to a powerful barrage of explosions across the capital and closed early today with Washington assessing where to next in its plan to reshape the Middle East.

One of the insurgents' volley of a dozen mortars about 90 minutes into the poll killed four civilians and wounded seven more at a polling station in Baghdad's Sadr City slums. At least 13 more died and dozens were wounded when six suicide bombers detonated their charges at voting centres in different parts of the capital.

Personally, I'm looking forward to sitting down with that Scott Ritter article. I have to gut some fish and housebreak a dog.

You Win Some...

New York Times:

But if the insurgents wanted to stop people in Baghdad from voting, they failed. If they wanted to cause chaos, they failed. The voters were completely defiant, and there was a feeling that the people of Baghdad, showing a new, positive attitude, had turned a corner.

No one was claiming that the insurgency was over or that the deadly attacks would end. But the atmosphere in this usually grim capital, a city at war and an ethnic microcosm of the country, had changed, with people dressed in their finest clothes to go to the polls in what was generally a convivial mood.

Yes. The terror forces have lost. It is now just a matter of time, isn't it? Zarqawi had made the disruption, no, the elimination of the election his raison d'etre and that election has become his Waterloo. The Iraqi people have shown what they are made of and as Americans we should admire and honor them for their courage.

There is already starting the sneering, the rationalizing, the outright disdain for a nation that has risen up and taken a huge step toward joining the free world as a free people.  Let them sneer. Let them look away and mumble and moan that this wasn't what it was.

And also: to our great American troops who, for no other reason that this is what they do, made it possible for this day to come, I offer my heart-felt thanks and my undying admiration.

This is a great day.

What's Russia Up To?

Maggie sent me this article yesterday and we exchanged a few hypotheses:

About 130 Russian spies are currently undercover in Germany, almost as many as were deployed there by the

KGB during the Cold War, according to the latest edition of the German news magazine Focus. German political parties, companies, the armed forces and scientific research establishments were targeted by post-communist Russian espionage, said the report quoting German authorities. The article, released in advance of Monday's edition, quoted an official of the German Federal Criminal Investigation Agency (BKA) as saying these targets were spied on "in an extremely aggressive way." It also quoted an unnamed senior official of Germany's domestic counter-intelligence service as saying Russian intelligence had been
strongly reinforced of late, so that almost as many operatives were now undercover on German territory as there were Soviet KGB agents there during the Cold War.

Then this morning I see this from Time via Drudge:

Russia runs more than 100 known spies under official cover in the U.S., senior U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement officials say. And those are just the more easily spotted spies working under the classic guise of diplomat. An unknown number of so-called nocs—who work under nonofficial cover as businessmen and -women, journalists or academics—undoubtedly expand the Russian spy force. "They're baaaaack," says a former senior U.S. intelligence official who worked against Moscow during the cold war. "They're busy as hell, but I don't think we've really got what it is that they're doing." The number of Russian spies in the U.S. is especially surprising, given that it was less than four years ago that the Bush Administration expelled 50 of them in retaliation for the humiliating discovery that FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen had been spying for Russia for 21 years.

With regards to the German story Maggie writes:

I  think the problem I have making any sense of this goes to the point of WHY this information was released to the press.  Russia could have been "given notice" that we know what you are doing in private conversation......but this was made public.  To me it  seems to have been directed to a third party, one of the German political parties, who might be co-operating with Moscow....accusations to be made public at a later date and this is just the laying of groundwork....or an attempt to halt any alliances  by  making all the parties aware of "we are on to you."

I agree that it seems premature, or mildly incompetent, to work this through the press. It is no secret that countries, even allies, continually spy on each other. And it would certainly make sense for the Russian standpoint to ramp up intelligence now that the tide seems to have turned against the Putin government. With the persistent loss of former satellites, Ukraine ready to bolt, a Middle Eat that is suddenly more firmly under American and Western influence, and the warming of trade relations and political discourse between the US and China, Russia can hardly be expected to stand still.

But what about Maggie's question? It looks to me like a concerted effort on the part of Western nations to play a different kind of confidence game with respect to Russia. Let's say that the Russians have gained an intelligence advantage while the US and its allies have been concentrating on infiltration from Islamic groups while trying to convert domestic federal law enforcement to counter-espionage. How could the governments targeted combat such an advantage?

One option would be to round up as many spies as possible and expel them. But what if there were so many, so deeply embedded that they are hard to identify? Go public. This would probably send some spies deeper into cover, but that would also make it more difficult to operate freely. I don't think that this was a way of putting Russia "on notice" so much as biding time while the Feds get up to speed.

But what do I know?

 

Beckel Gets It.

Bob Beckel is on Fox right now saying that he can't believe that John Kerry is "dumping on" the elections in Iraq. He says (paraphrase) he doesn't understand how any Democrat can look at these elections and not say that it is a magnificent achievement.

Bravo, Bob.

Israelis Set for West Bank Pullout.

 

The Israeli pullout from the West Bank is a major provision of the "road map" for the Middle East peace process. Now it seems that things are moving:

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel said it was ready to hand over control of several West Bank towns to the Palestinians within days, further fuelling optimism of a genuine breakthrough in the Middle East peace process.

The announcement came ahead of a breakthrough summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and new Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas which Israel's public radio said had been lined up for February 8.

This can be seen as a direct result of Arafat's death and the subsequent elections in the Palestinian Authority. Israel may now see Abbas as someone with whom they can strike a deal.

We are far from any talk of a lasting peace, of course, and this could reverse in the explosion of another suicide bomber. But with the successful election in Iraq and now this, Mideast politics have taken a hopeful turn.

I am loathe to make this at all about domestic politics. However, it would be difficult not to see the news today as being a step toward ratification of the US/British push for reform in the Middle East.

I have witnessed a kind of subtle hope among the critics of the US and the UK that the Iraqi elections would fail and thus make the policies of Bush and Blair fail also. There was a palpable sense that the desire to say "See? I told you so. There can't and won't be democracy on the Middle East. At least not as long as Bush is in the White House." Because, you know, he's an idiot. Or an evil megalomaniac. Or Cheney's puppet. Or an oil man. Or a crass manipulator. Or, or ,or. And this desire has in some places has become the overriding impulse, attempting to squelch the fact that 25 million people are now living under a duly elected government, free from Saddam's police state.

The original estimates of a 72% turnout seem to have been too optimistic. The actual figure s said to be around 60% - far greater than the turnout in the US in 2004 where nobody, regardless of what a few nutballs say about Ohio, was intimidated or threatened or killed for voting.

Iraqis turned out by the millions to face down Zarqawi and his ilk and give voice to consensual government. Afghanis have had their own free elections. A testament to their success is the illustration that the media has for the most part relegated Afghanistan to the back pages, if the country is covered at all. Israelis and Palestinians are slowly moving toward some tentative agreement.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

 

Giving the Finger.

Now that the polls in Iraq have closed, it looks as if the elections have been a surprising, heartening and resounding success. No doubt that the future is not yet secure for the Iraqi people, but this is a huge blow against the terror forces and for the march of democracy.

Over at IEDs, Stephen links to Yahoo's slide show of the election throughout the country.

I have been nervous leading up to this day. When I woke up and turned on the tube, one of the first faces I saw was that of Dan Senor, former CPA adviser. He had about him a kind of weary smile that said without words that the election was going far better than had been expected. A dense of relief seemed to permeate his commentary.

I have been tooling around the Internet to see what Iraqis were saying.

From Iraq the Model:

We had all kinds of feelings in our minds while we were on our way to the ballot box except one feeling that never came to us, that was fear.
We could smell pride in the atmosphere this morning; everyone we saw was holding up his blue tipped finger with broad smiles on the faces while walking out of the center.

I couldn't think of a scene more beautiful than that.
From the early hours of the morning, People filled the street to the voting center in my neighborhood; youths, elders, women and men. Women's turn out was higher by the way. And by 11 am the boxes where I live were almost full!
Anyone watching that scene cannot but have tears of happiness, hope, pride and triumph.

From Ali at Free Iraqi:

I'm still thrilled as I'm watching Iraqis vote allover Iraq through TV. Al Arabyia just reported that 6 thousand people in Fallujah have voted till now out of 60 thousands who have returned to their homes (total not voters). I listened to that and I felt enormous admiration and respect to those 6 thousand heroes. Things are difficult in Baghdad but it's still incomparable to Fallujah. I'm sure that the number will rise towards the end of the day.

I'm stil overwhelmed with thoughts and emotions that I don't know what to say more. The only things I can feel so strongly now are hope, excitement, pride and a strange internal peace. I have won my battle and I'm watching the whole Iraqis winning their battle too. I'll try to write to you later my friends.
A'ash Al Iraq, A'ashat America, A'ash Al Tahaluf. (Long live Iraq, long live America and long live the coalition)

Yes, I know. I have picked sites that I happen to agree with. So sue me. I have little tolerance today for those who would sneer at this historic and grand day. This is a huge victory for the people of Iraq and for all those throughout the world who wish to govern themselves. So let other sites talk of attacks and casualties. Let other bloggers write that these elections will mean nothing because the violence will not instantly stop and beside, this is just another US manipulation and it was all about the oil.

Today I will not utter one syllable of negativity. There may be facts, such as how many people have been injured or killed, what's going on with the British C-130, and so on. I see this day not as a turning point, not as the start of a whole new era, but as a day that we will look back on in the coming years and say this was were the world began to realize the overpowering goodness of the human yearning to be free and to determine one's own place in the community of free people.

Congratulations and best wishes to the people of Iraq.

Big Day.

There are reports of some violence in and around some polling places in Iraq, but Reuters is reporting a turnout of 72%. This seems like a big deal to me. Some stories here, here (hold your nose - this is Reuters), here and here.

So far I am encouraged by the relatively (to many expectations) small impact of attacks. We have about an hour to go until polls close (5:00PM Baghdad time - 9:00AM EST).

Now of course, those who have been saying that the elections would be a failure will now shift their focus and claim that the big test is now what happens after the elections are over - that the real test is what happens now - the US has to get out no -  how can the government operate under such oppressive American military presence? - there will be more and larger terror attacks coming - how can you count on a ballot count as long as the evil Americans are hanging around with guns? - waa, waa, waaaaaaa.