The Finger

[kmilligan.livejournal.com]

Comments

[ceejayoz.livejournal.com]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAR055907.htm

Iraq's Electoral Commission backtracked on earlier estimates of voter turnout in the election, saying a previous figure of 72 percent "was just an estimate" and indicated the actual figure was lower.

[kmilligan.livejournal.com]

Even 60% isn't too shabby. What was the turnout in our last election, after all?

[cydesho.livejournal.com]

Why trivialize their election? I may not like Bush, and I certainly didn't support the war, but at least the people are getting to vote. Why should a 10% estimation error mean that the election was any less valid?

[kmilligan.livejournal.com]

It's not trivializing, it's celebrating the victory. The high turnout means the insurgents were unable to intimidate enough people into not voting as to call into question the legitimacy of the government they just elected.

[kmilligan.livejournal.com]

Though perhaps you were replying to ceejayoz. It's hard to tell.

[cydesho.livejournal.com]

i was referring to ceejayoz's comment. sorry for beig vague

[ceejayoz.livejournal.com]

I'm quite happy the election went so well.

[beretta.livejournal.com]

Why trivialize it? Because there are certain people out there who have this agenda that they just cannot accept anything positive about Iraq, and as silly as it sounds I think they secretly and some not so secretly wanted the elections there to fail miserably just so they could justify their own opinions and yell at the top of their lungs "We told you so" They are so bent their viewpoint that they just can't accept any good news out of Iraq.

To illustrate that point, you may have heard of these Iraqi blogs that tell a much different picture than we often see on the news. Many of these Iraqi blogs show optimism for Iraqs future, appreciation to Bush and the troops and disdain for the insurgents. Well someone came up with the idea that these Iraqi blogs can't possibly be written by real Iraqis and must be written by a CIA plant. Give me a break!

But back to trivilizing good news, they jump on any little tidbit of bad news or error and sensationalize it to make it sounds worse than it is.

[fleaplus.livejournal.com]

That may actually be true to an extent. I'm someone who used to be much more against the war than I am now, and I have to confess that I used to think much how you describe, with a little dread in the back of my mind of success in Iraq.

Evil Monkeys of the world, unite!

[mmmmjournal.livejournal.com]

w00t.

Thanks for posting that.

[johnraptor.livejournal.com]

There's still the little matter of how well the election takes, in the long term, but for now at least, props to Bush and props to the Iraqi people. They pulled it off.