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Just
Ignorant, or Downright Destructive?
Those Who Downplay Iraq’s Election Hinder Freedom’s Triumph......
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Carol Platt Liebau - Columnist
Carol
Platt Liebau is editorial director and a senior member of theOneRepublic and CaliforniaRepublic editorial
board. She is an attorney, political analyst and commentator
based in San Marino, CA, and has appeared on the Fox News
Channel, MSNBC, CNN, Orange County News Channel, Cox Cable
and a variety of radio programs throughout the United States.
A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School,
Carol Platt Liebau also served as the first female managing
editor of the Harvard Law Review. Her web log can be found
at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com
[go to Liebau index]
 Just
Ignorant, or Downright Destructive?
Those Who Downplay Iraq’s Election Hinder Freedom’s
Triumph...
[Carol
Platt Liebau] 1/31/05
Terrorist
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi understood the stakes in yesterday’s
Iraq election. Just last week, he ranted, "We have declared
a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who
follow this wrong ideology. Anyone who tries to help set up this
system is part of it ...”
In a larger-than-expected turnout, punctuated
by dances and songs of joy, the Iraqi people defied the threats
and went out
to experience the glory of voting – exercising the God-given
freedom so rudely defiled during the era of Saddam Hussein. They,
too, understood the stakes in the election.
Not so for John Kerry and The
Los Angeles Times. Kerry – granting
a post-defeat interview on “Meet the Press” – tried
his best to minimize the election’s significance. Questioned
about the impact of the Iraqi elections, he answered sourly, “No
one in the United States should try to overhype this election
. . .. [I]t’s hard to say that something is legitimate
when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote.”
How shameful. John Kerry downplayed an enormous
success for the cause of Middle Eastern democracy because that
success might
otherwise redound to the credit of his adversary. So intent is
Kerry in forwarding his own petty political agenda that the larger
implications of his statements – including his aspersions
on the election’s legitimacy – are either lost on
him or deemed supremely unimportant.
It’s worth noting that in 2002, when Kerry was last re-elected
to the Senate, the turnout in his state was between 48 and 49
percent, according to a study conducted by Dr. Michael McDonald
of George Mason University. In contrast, early estimates are
that 72% of eligible Iraqis turned out to vote; contrary to Kerry’s
allegation, they could vote and they did. So whose election,
exactly, is illegitimate, Senator?
A similar, though more subtle, agenda was evident
in yesterday’s
Los Angeles Times. With Iraqi elections long scheduled, the Times’ editors
chose to highlight on the cover of the weekend magazine a piece
titled “Who’s Dying in Our War?” Certainly,
the subject is a legitimate one, but any fair-minded observer
would have to concede that its placement in yesterday’s
edition certainly gives the impression of trying to undermine
any sense of accomplishment springing from the success of the
Iraqi elections.
Nor does the story itself do anything to eliminate
such suspicions. It quotes virulent Bush critic Col. David
Hackworth (whose attacks
on the President were apparently so vitriolic that they were
excised from the now-infamous “60 Minutes”/Rathergate
piece), but on the other side, the piece not a single quote from
a Bush Administration official about its military staffing policy,
the topic of the article. It certainly falls short of being “fair
and balanced.”
Taken together, all of this raises unsettling
questions. The Left, obsessed as it is with Vietnam, knows
that America could
never have been defeated by the military might of the Viet Cong.
Instead, the Vietnam War was lost in the living rooms of America –through
means including false testimony, like John Kerry’s, about
alleged atrocities routinely conducted by soldiers and condoned
by the U.S. Government. Newspapers, likewise, did their part
by playing up bad news and ignoring good news – a little
like touting a story on Army Reserve and National Guard casualties
on a day when the Iraqi people have taken a historic step toward
freedom.
It’s become a cliché that those who don’t
learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. Once again, we
find John Kerry ignoring the truth about a conflict in a foreign
land in service of his own personal advancement. And once again,
the media seems all too determined to fixate on the negative
without providing proper context. Taken together, such behavior
seems startlingly familiar.
Of course, Kerry and The L.A. Times aren’t alone – they’re
in good company with Ted Kennedy (who called for American withdrawal
from Iraq just days before the election) and Barbara Boxer (who
wastes no opportunity to bemoan our presence there). They have
many allies on the Left, who likewise appear all too eager to
rejoice at any setback for America, heedless of the cost to the
Iraqi people or America’s vital strategic objectives.
All of it begs a question: Do they not know how destructive
they are, or do they just not care? tOR
Columnist
Carol Platt Liebau is a political analyst, commentator and CaliforniaRepublic.org editorial
director based in San Marino, CA. Ms. Liebau also served
as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Her web log can be found at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com
copyright
2005
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