Quote Of The Day

This Bush quote from today's press conference really irks me:

I didn't expect Thomas Jefferson to emerge in Iraq in a 90-day period.

It just shows how arrogant we are, how we still think we've got a monopoly on the ideals of freedom, how we still think we're the only ones who could possibly ever have a leader arise to overthrow a government, how we still cling to the "white man's burden". Thomas Jefferson, one of my heroes, became a leader not because a foreign power brought down the regime oppressing him, but because he and his fellow patriots took responsibility for their future and acted to secure our nation's liberty. Democracy cannot be imposed, it must come from within. The Iraqi people have that wellspring of humanity inside, just as we do.

Immediately preceding the above quote, Bush said this:

I remind some of my friends that it took us a while to go from the Articles of Confederation to the United States Constitution. Even our own experiment with democracy, it didn't happen overnight.

Uh...right. I've heard this line of reasoning coming from Rummy as well as Bush: gee, it took 8 years for us to become a free country. Recall that we did in fact have a government under the Articles, it's just that we didn't have as strong a central governing body as we have today under the Constitution. I'll note that the debates during the Federal Convention lasted about 120 days--you think Bremer and crew will have an Iraqi constitution done in another month? Ratification by the requisite nine states took an additional eight months--think we'll be out of Iraq by next summer?

But let me go back to the fundamental issue. If we are arguing by analogy, the most important point is that we threw off our shackles. No foreign power decided to remove them for us by invading our country. Further, while it did take us some time to finally create our Constitution, it was the American people who did it on their own, without a foreign power dictating how it will be.

Now we are the occupying regime and in response, and a Thomas Jefferson* just might emerge to declare independence from us. Maybe it's Sheik Moqtada al-Sadr, maybe it's somebody else. Regardless, as we continue to massacre** Iraqi civilians, they will continue to resist us until they have their country back.

ntodd

* Or a James Madison, for that matter.
** I use "massacre" in the same sensational manner that Samuel Adams used it wrt the Boston Massacre.   ¶ 1:11 PM