The petulant reaction of some on the left to the elections in Iraq is particularly telling. Instapundit has an excellent evisceration of some loonies at Democratic Underground (redundant, I know…). John Cole (not to be confused with Juan Cole) has some more examples of Oliver Willis’ petulantly pooh-poohing the elections. And as always, The Daily Kos is there to show their willingness to stand against whatever Bush is for. If Bush said he liked puppies, no doubt the Kossacks would be calling for the head of Scooby Doo. And this is supposed to be the “reality-based community.”
What we’re getting is classic cognitive dissonance – the sudden crash between the worldview of the left and reality. The people of Iraq have embraced democracy — decisively. The idea that the “insurgency” is the authentic voice of the Iraqi people (because obviously popular movements need to resort to mass murder every once in a while just to show how popular they are) has been shattered by 8 million Iraqis bravely going to the polls.
The people of Iraq have charted a course towards freedom and democracy – it is telling that some people are perfectly willing to downplay, ignore, or insult the rise of democracy in Iraq.
UPDATE: Greg Djerejian notes the deafening silence from the left:
With apologies to my reader, I’m just not buying. Kos and Atrios can wail and bitch all they want about the varied missteps of the Bushies. But at least he is in the arena, making hard choices, pushing this nation-building exercise along. Look, this blog has never been shy about taking the Administration to task for poor post-war planning and assumptions. But the point here, and it’s showcased today in spades, is that neither of these leading left blogosphere entities really give a damn about Iraqi democratization. If they did, they would have shown some integrity and deigned to show a modicum of interest by mentioning that the elections went, all told, much better than the large majority of analyst’s most optimistic prognostications foretold.
By now it seems quite clear that Iraq is nothing but a talking point to them – this is all about the left’s Ahab-like fixation on the President. President Bush deserves some credit for these elections, but only as an incidental figure. This is a victory for the people of Iraq — a victory that could never have happened without their will to seize freedom for themselves. It is illustrative of how little the left really cares about the people of Iraq that so many of them, from Senators Kennedy and Kerry on down cannot even bring themselves to acknowledge this great victory against terrorism.
And speaking of deafening silence, Mark (who can normally be counted on to provide a leftist counterpoint within minutes of any post Jay makes) has not been heard from…