Thursday, January 26, 2006
GETTING WHAT WE WANT - BUT NOT THE WAY WE WANT IT
A note on the democratic process
Drudge leads this morning with the politically unsettling news from Palestine via AP:
“Officials: Hamas Wins Palestinian Election”
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060126/D8FCBVLOC.html
Hamas is claiming 75 seats out of 132.
The President is scheduled to speak within minutes. This development will likely be addressed. Meanwhile, The Secretary of State is insisting the US position on Hamas is unchanged… “We” will not deal with an organization we have labeled “terrorist:”
“You cannot have one foot in politics and another in terror," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland, via a telephone hookup to the State Department Thursday. "Our position on Hamas has therefore not changed.”
We asked for it…
Opines Hanan Ashrawi, a moderate assemblywoman who survived re-election:
“Washington miscalculated in pushing for the vote, as part of its pro-democracy campaign in the Arab world. The Americans insisted on having the election now, so they have to respect the results of the election, as we all do”…
That’s three in as many months… Bolivia, Iraq, and now Palestine. Three democratically held, legitimate elections – two of which the US actively promoted – which have produced results the US will likely rue…
One of the reasons I reject neoconservatism is its blind insistence that “our way of life” is self-evidently the best, and the concomitant attitude that if given the chance to hold “free and fair” elections any people will choose a government that will see the light – our way.
Here are three exhibits against this arrogance: A socialist in Bolivia who prefers Castro to Bush, a Shiite majority government in Iraq who prefers Sharia to the democratic process that put it in power, and now Hamas…
Just remember, I told you so…
Drudge leads this morning with the politically unsettling news from Palestine via AP:
“Officials: Hamas Wins Palestinian Election”
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060126/D8FCBVLOC.html
Hamas is claiming 75 seats out of 132.
The President is scheduled to speak within minutes. This development will likely be addressed. Meanwhile, The Secretary of State is insisting the US position on Hamas is unchanged… “We” will not deal with an organization we have labeled “terrorist:”
“You cannot have one foot in politics and another in terror," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland, via a telephone hookup to the State Department Thursday. "Our position on Hamas has therefore not changed.”
We asked for it…
Opines Hanan Ashrawi, a moderate assemblywoman who survived re-election:
“Washington miscalculated in pushing for the vote, as part of its pro-democracy campaign in the Arab world. The Americans insisted on having the election now, so they have to respect the results of the election, as we all do”…
That’s three in as many months… Bolivia, Iraq, and now Palestine. Three democratically held, legitimate elections – two of which the US actively promoted – which have produced results the US will likely rue…
One of the reasons I reject neoconservatism is its blind insistence that “our way of life” is self-evidently the best, and the concomitant attitude that if given the chance to hold “free and fair” elections any people will choose a government that will see the light – our way.
Here are three exhibits against this arrogance: A socialist in Bolivia who prefers Castro to Bush, a Shiite majority government in Iraq who prefers Sharia to the democratic process that put it in power, and now Hamas…
Just remember, I told you so…
