NYT: Washington Memo: Communicator in Chief Keeps the Focus on Iraq Positive

The New York Times > Washington > Washington Memo: Communicator in Chief Keeps the Focus on Iraq Positive:

Mr. Bush instead focused on his long-term goal of "ending tyranny in our world," and then cast the Iraqi election coming Sunday as part of a march of freedom around the globe. He said that if he had told the reporters in the room a few years before that the Iraqi people would be voting, "'you would look at me like some of you still look at me, with a kind of blank expression."

"You know, it is amazing, first of all, they're having a vote at all," Mr. Bush said in response to the first question, about whether he expected a big turnout in the Iraqi election. "A couple of years ago, people would have been puzzled by someone saying that the Iraqis will be given a chance to vote."

Puzzled is right. Because if you had said a few years ago that the Iraqis would be voting, we would say that could happen only one way. That could happen only if a country like us went in and conquered Iraq, and then we held elections because that is what you do when you bring freedom and democracy to people.