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January 28, 2005
The MSM's transparent hope for Iraq election failure
Captain's Quarters writes, as have many others, of the mainstream media's undisguised hope that the Iraqi elections will fail.
I've been extremely disturbed by the attitude of the MSM, and most of the Left, towards the idea of an Iraqi democracy. I can't help asking myself why self-proclaimed lovers of freedom and haters of fascism want to dismiss the possibility of an Arab democracy out of hand. Why does it threaten them so?
To answer that question properly would require an 8-volume collaborative historical dissertation with appendices, indices, and a live web site annex. But I'm ambitious, so I'm going to advance one of the possible reasons right here:
I'm old enough to remember this happening with Reagan and his attempts to bring down the Soviet empire. As unseemly -- no, as horrifying -- as it was to see Americans defend the Soviet Union, portraying it as a peace-loving victim of Reagan's warmongering, it made some kind of sense. At the time, I struggled to understand, and finally decided that for some Western socialists, the Soviet Union was a kind of presumptive utopia that they simply refused to believe anything bad about, lest it tarnish their own socialist ideals. Okay. USSR = socialism = collectivism. Collectivism = good. So anyone who threatens the USSR = bad. Fine. Got it.
But Saddam was a fascist, not a Communist. None of the Arab regimes are Communist. Clearly, my earlier beliefs about the motives behind the loathing of Reagan's drive to "tear down this wall" were mistaken.
The whole thing makes much more sense when seen as a cult of personality. When Kennedy announced in his inaugural address that the US would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty," that was a stirring sentiment, an aspiration to man's highest ideals. When Bush, last week, said, "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in the world," that was a warmongering shot across the bow of the already-oppressed Muslim world. When Kennedy fought Communism, that was our brave, boyish leader lighting the way for Liberty. When Reagan fought Communism, that was a broken-down B actor dodderingly leading us all to nuclear annihilation.
Why were such different criteria applied to these presidents? Because one was "our guy" and one was "their guy" -- the hated them, the other. And both were the subjects, in their way, of cults of personality -- only, for those who hated him, Reagan was the subject of an inverse cult of personality.
And so is Bush. Instead of blindly following Bush, the members of this cult blindly reject everything he does, everything he stands for. No need to examine each individual case; if Bush is behind it, it's bad. A simple paradigm. Bush is the anti-guru, the anti-messiah. He can do no right. If he appears to be doing right, then, like Satan, he is simply making a transparent attempt to deceive the righteous.
Therefore, elections in Iraq must be a disaster, by definition, because they are seen as Bush's pet project. If there's no apparent way in which they are a disaster, the MSM will find a way. The other option is unacceptable: If Bush has advanced a good cause, he cannot be a true demon. And the worldview of the Bush-haters, the anti-Bush cult of personality, will collapse.
Update: Wellsir, I'm afraid that Frank J at IMAO has found a way to say kinda the same thing I said above, and make it funny. I observe, and learn. Of course, my commentary had nuance.
Update: Right Wing News, quoting Greyhawk from Mudville Gazette, covers the topic very perceptively.
Posted by EtherPundit at January 28, 2005 11:14 AM Category: Current Affairs