Iraq's Moment of Truth

Emotionally, I want to believe we've turned the corner in Iraq.

Who wouldn't be encouraged after seeing all those purple-fingered Iraqis seizing the chance to vote in their first free election in half a century?

There's no way, ultimately, that even the powerful U.S. military can make Iraq safe (just ask Israel how difficult patrolling a hostile area is). The Iraqis have to reach some sort of political solution and police their own country. And Sunday was a step on the right road.

But as heartening as the pictures were, it was only a step.

I remember feeling similarly exultant when Saddam's statue came down, but the words "mission accomplished" turned out to be a tad premature. I remember watching TV commentators declare on the day that Saddam was flushed out of his spider hole that the worst was over and the insurgency would still fade. Wrong.

So now we have to face the fact that whatever government emerges from this process may not be all that friendly to the United States, and could demand a timetable for American troops to pack their bags. Which, in turn, would be great if the new regime has enough strength, and enough legitimacy, to prevent the country from plunging into a bloody civil war.

As for conditions on the Day After, we had three more Marines killed and terrorists claiming credit for shooting down that British Air Force C-130. Sunday's voting was a big setback for the murderers, but that hardly means they're out of business. Remember, the military shut down lots of major roads for the election.

Bush is rightfully getting credit for pressing ahead with elections that seem to have turned out well, but the fate of Iraq ultimately isn't in his hands. As long as people are willing to blow themselves up to stop democracy, the Iraqis have a ways to go.

Here's my report from The Washington Post today on the media coverage:

Less than an hour before the Iraqi polls closed, correspondent Jim Maceda was reporting on MSNBC that some voters were so afraid that they asked if they could sneak in the back of a polling station. At almost the same moment, CNN's Jane Arraf was interviewing a man who was proud to talk about his vote in front of a camera.

On Fox News, former coalition spokesman Dan Senor, now a Fox analyst, was praising the process, followed by a parade of mostly pro-administration guests -- Richard Perle, Alexander Haig, Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, Republican Rep. Ted Poe, Robert MacFarlane, Bill Kristol, Newt Gingrich and Oliver North (who called it "a great day for America and a great day for freedom").

From the moment the first Iraqis cast their ballots, the administration's supporters and critics were out in force, pushing their preferred story line. True, no one knows yet who won, or how many Sunnis turned out despite boycott threats, and 45 people were killed in a matter of hours. But none of that could stop the message wars.

Later on Sunday morning, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was declaring the election process "better than expected" on "Face the Nation," one of four Sunday shows she dropped by, while Sen. John Kerry was cautioning on "Meet the Press" that "no one should overhype this election." President Bush went before the cameras at 1 p.m. to declare the elections a "resounding success," and most newspaper front pages trumpeted his assessment yesterday.

"Iraq has become part and parcel of American domestic politics, and subject to all the tricks of the trade of American politics," said Kenneth Pollack, an Iraq expert at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center. "Condi, the president -- the administration was definitely out there trying to turn it into something bigger. It was a very good day -- though it may be irrelevant in the long term -- but it could have been catastrophic."

Administration spokesmen also blitzed the morning programs yesterday, with John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, hitting CBS's "Early Show," CNN's "American Morning" and "Fox & Friends," while Paul Bremer, the former civilian administrator in Iraq, popped up on "Today."

Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, said the pictures were the story. "When you see people literally risking their lives in order to vote, that seems to me to meet the definition of success and shouldn't require a whole lot of spin," said May, a former New York Times correspondent and Republican Party spokesman. "By and large, most of the coverage reflected the fact that Iraqis were going to the polls, lining up, walking miles, risking lives. There was in some of the commentary a kind of grumbling that this is not so important, that this doesn't really prove anything."

Rush Limbaugh, on his radio show, was far more critical of the coverage. "All the media expressed shock and surprise that the turnout was so high and there was as little violence as there was. . . . Who are these people to be setting expectations?" he asked yesterday. Even correspondents in Iraq "can't find" the pro-freedom sentiments among Iraqis, "and they don't want to find it."

Some liberals dismissed the notion that they were disappointed. "This wasn't a defeat for anybody," Al Franken said on Air America radio. "We are thrilled." But, he added, "there's a long, long way to go before Iraq is going to be a stable Western democracy." Liberal radio host Ed Schultz said of conservatives, "It's not that Iraq is moving forward that's important to them as much as it is that it makes Bush look good for one day."

If some television viewers were surprised by Sunday's spectacle, it may be because much of the media coverage since Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled has focused on the shootings, kidnappings and suicide bombings that have claimed the lives of American soldiers and Iraqis alike. This is in part because attacks are a natural and heart-rending story for the media, especially if there is dramatic video, and in part because of the dangerous environment for journalists.

"What we've missed out on is Iraqi thinking," said Donatella Lorch, a onetime foreign correspondent for Newsweek, NBC and the New York Times, because "our reporters on the ground are so constrained. As a westerner, you can't go out and visit Hassan on the fourth floor of his apartment for dinner and find out how he's feeling. It's not a pleasant job, being a reporter in Baghdad," said Lorch, who directs the Knight International Press Fellowships.

Pollack agreed that violence has been a staple of the coverage, but said: "I don't see that as evidence of liberal bias. It's inherent in the news process -- you focus on what's sensational."

Numbers also played a role in shaping the early coverage. When an Iraqi official estimated a 72 percent turnout rate early Sunday, the figure was repeatedly cited by anchors and correspondents, although a few noted that it sounded unrealistically high. It turned out to be as accurate as the American exit polls in November.

But although the official number was later downgraded to 60 percent, that may not be accurate, either. "It's an amazing media error, a huge blunder," said Clinton White House veteran Robert Weiner. "I'm sure the Bush administration is thrilled by this spin."

The 60 percent figure is based on the notion that 8 million of 14 million eligible Iraqis turned out. But the 14 million figure is the number of registered Iraqis, while turnout is usually calculated using the number of eligible voters. The number of adults in Iraq is probably closer to 18 million, which would lower the turnout figure. And the registration figure itself is questionable. Anyone who received a ration card was deemed registered, and there was no effort to remove duplicate names or those who sought extra food rations. Election officials concede they did not have a reliable baseline on which to calculate turnout.

No one would contest that the tableau of Iraqis proudly waving their fingers, purple with election ink, was a stirring sight, but there were casualties as well.

"Forty-five dead -- that's not peanuts," Lorch said. "If that had happened in the United States on Election Day, we would have made it a major scandal. Now we're acting like in Iraq it's a great success. We seem to have become numb to the daily car bombs and daily attacks."

Moving right along. . . . The day after a big event, the media take is always Unanswered Questions Remain. Or, as the Boston Globe puts it, "Urgent Tasks Loom After Polling":

"With Iraq still counting millions of ballots from Sunday's historic national elections, US and Iraqi officials looked ahead yesterday to their most pressing challenges, from taming an insurgency that mounted a record 250 attacks on election day to coaxing the many Sunni Muslims who did not vote into accepting the new government."

There's also When Are We Getting Out?

"Now that Iraq's election has passed," says the Chicago Tribune, "several of the 28 nations in the American-led military coalition intend to withdraw their troops, citing the costs -- in lives and money -- of operating for nearly two years inside Iraq."

And, What Have You Done for Me Lately?

"Voting down, security to go. Iraq's first free elections in 50 years now set the stage for President Bush to ratchet up the training of Iraqi security forces and convince Americans he has a viable plan for Iraq, which he is likely to try to do in his State of the Union speech Wednesday," says USA Today.

I love the way the Democrats are trying to get press. First, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi decide to do a pre-buttal yesterday to Bush's SOTU speech (why wait for the actual event?). Then they leak part of it on Sunday (a pre-pr-buttal?); the New York Times led with it, while The Washington Post used it after a leak from the GOP's White Sulphur Springs retreat.

The Los Angeles Times casts the event as revealing, yes, tensions within the party:

"Democratic congressional leaders distanced themselves Monday from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's call for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, even as they urged President Bush to present a detailed exit strategy this week in his State of the Union speech.

"Remarks by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) to the National Press Club reflected the dilemmas Democrats have faced -- and their 2004 presidential nominee could not resolve -- since the U.S. toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and confronted a raging insurgency.

"The party has grappled with how to criticize the administration's handling of the Iraq war and its aftermath without appearing to undercut the U.S. effort to bring democracy to the Iraqi people. Its task grew more complicated Sunday when a piece of the administration's strategy -- the holding of elections -- resulted in Iraq's first free elections in a half-century."

Says Jeff Jarvis at the Buzz Machine:

"The American right and left are analyzing the Iraq vote on the wrong basis: It's not about George Bush, pro or con. It's not about America, pro or con. It's not even about the war, pro or con. It's about the Iraqi people and democracy and their future, for which there is only a pro, not a con."

Glenn Reynolds has lost patience with two leading Democratic senators:

"Kennedy declared the war lost and the elections a failure just last week. Kerry was churlish and negative on Meet the Press. . . .

"I think it's jealousy. Bush-hatred has become all-consuming among a large section of the Democratic Party, and they can't stand the thought of anything that reflects well on him, even if it's good for the country, and if it's something that was their idea originally.

"The question is whether the Democratic Party -- which ought to be cheering events that vindicate Clinton's policies -- will do itself fatal damage by giving in to envy. Such small-mindedness doesn't suggest a party that's ready to govern."

National Review's Jonah Goldberg has really lost patience with one of those senators:

"Is there a more execrable, horrid parody of an American statesman alive today than Ted Kennedy? Yes, yes, of course he's a joke; a family name wrapped around a bundle of appetite, cynicism, and asininity. But he matters precisely because his party and the media imbue him with a moral stature now wholly severed from the admirable traditions and ideas we associate with the president who swore we would pay any price and bear any burden to defend the survival of liberty.

"Three days before the Iraqi election, this gaseous dybbuk of democracy proclaimed that America was losing -- or 'not winning' -- the battle for the 'hearts and minds' of Iraqis even as the barbarians were scrawling on walls that anyone who voted would be slaughtered. Does Kennedy truly understand the meaning of the phrase, 'winning the hearts and minds'? You do not win a man's heart or mind by threatening to kill him if he expresses what is in his heart or mind. To pick this moment to say that the battle was equally joined by the squads of foreign terrorists and domestic thugs -- whose only 'agenda' is to retrieve the keys to the dungeons and restore the rape rooms -- is to do incalculable and deliberate violence to the effort to bring democracy to Iraq and to the ideals he claims to be speaking for. . . .

"Senator Kennedy gave that speech either to deliberately undermine the elections or without much concern that he was doing precisely that."

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum scoffs at the notion of the NYT putting its electronic thumb on the scale:

"I know, I know, I really need to ignore the wingnuts. It's better for my blood pressure.

"But honestly, I just can't help myself sometimes. Instapundit links approvingly today to this post from Ann Althouse complaining -- seriously -- that the New York Times has changed one of the headlines on its website. Can you believe it!?! What's more, the new headline isn't as positive as the old headline. Bad New York Times! Biased New York Times!

"Listen up, folks: the Times, like every other major newspaper, has a separate desk that handles its website. They don't publish one issue a day, either: they update the site continuously. New stories get added, old stories get modified, headlines change, etc. That might be annoying to bloggers, but until a story is committed to print it's subject to change. That's how the web works.

"The screenshot on the right shows the collection of Times headlines as of 8 pm on Sunday. There are eight headlines about Iraq, seven of which are heavily positive and one of which is about the number of people killed by insurgents. The only way the Times' coverage could be more positive would be to ignore the insurgent attacks altogether.

"Which, I have a feeling, is what our conservative friends really want. No bad news, period, regardless of whether anything bad has actually happened."

Cable has been going nuts over the Hillary Fainted story. (Psst: She's all right, as this New York Post story makes clear!)

Finally, TheStreet.com finds a new kind of inflation:

"Back in April and May 2004 -- when Donald Trump and Melania Knauss' engagement became public -- we found 104 press mentions of Knauss that mentioned her occupation. In 101 of them, she was described as a model. In three, a supermodel.

"Fast forward to this month, when we found 212 mentions of Knauss' job. She was identified as a supermodel in 33 of them. In other words, a model who was rated a supermodel 3% of the time eight months ago got bumped up to being a supermodel 16% of the time today.

"So there you go. You've got the same person -- the same basket of goods, so to speak -- who for no particular reason is valued 1,300 basis points higher today than she was eight months ago. Now, if that doesn't embody inflation, what does?"