Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Of Presidents & Kings

Wednesday June 2, 2004

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The Iraqis - in Iraq - took control of the process of selecting who would be their political leaders and now have settled on a President and a Prime Minister to lead their country until the adoption of a permanent constitution not later than January 2005.

This, if you listen to our friends on the Left, is a DEFEAT FOR BUSH!

And I don't just mean one of those close-home-team-gets-the-call-coulda-gone-either-way defeats. No. I mean a major foreign policy defeat on the level of causing Jacques Chirac to order up a set of bongo drums and stogies!

Let's take a look at what has happened in Iraq over the past few weeks:

The Coalition turned responsibility for Fallujah over to the Iraqi security forces and Fallujah has been fairly calm.
The Iraqis negotiated a deal with al-Sadr for both sides to withdraw from the Holy City of Najaf, which the Coalition acceded to, and Najaf has been calm.
Dear Mr. Mullings:
We have a question about this "Holy City" business. Just how many "holy cities" are there in Iraq?
Signed,
Nathaniel Currier and Burl Ives - "Map Makers and Folk Singers to the Stars"
To be on the safe side, reporters should refer to any city east of Hammond, Indiana as "the Holy City of �"
For instance, one should refer to the home of Little League Baseball as "the Holy City of Williamsport, Pennsylvania."

The UN and the Coalition selected many of the people to be the interim leaders of Iraq; the Iraqis accepted some and rejected some, but they have a national leadership with which they seem comfortable.

On a radio interview yesterday, I was asked if I was concerned because the names of the new Iraqi leadership are unknown to most Americans. I suggested the name of any member of their Congressional delegation would be unknown to most Americans, so it would not be a surprise to find that the name Ghazi Yawar does not exactly trip off the tongue of Americans who live in, say, the Holy City of Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

And for those who would find fault and point out that the Bush Administration missed the deadline for selecting a President of Iraq by a day, might we point to the number "36?" That was the number of days which went by following the election of 2000 before we knew who was going to be the President of the United States.

And, at that point we had been at it some 212 years.

And speaking of new constitutions, remember that we started with that little number known as the Articles of Confederation (which was written in 1777 and ratified in 1781) featuring, among other things: Only one House of Congress the members of which would be elected by the state legislatures; no Executive Branch, no Supreme Court, and, because they were so fearful of a King; no President of the United States.

Didn't work. Had to re-do the whole thing and come up with the Constitution which was ratified in 1789.

So, this nation-founding business is not as easy as ABC, or as easy as MSNBC or CNN-International would have us believe. The Iraqis are doing it in the full glare of a Western media which only marginally understands the culture and in spite of a small number of fanatics who are dedicated to destroying this new Iraq before it even gets under way.

We should be applauding the work of the Iraqis in trying to get it as correct as possible as quickly as possible.

Oh. Those Articles of Confederation? One of the clauses allowed Canada to be "admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this Union."

Happily for all parties, they declined. Thus, we are not required to refer, in any way, to the Holy City of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the real Currier & Ives; Burl Ives; the Articles of Confederation; quick facts about Saskatoon; a Mullfoto which will irritate you; and a Catchy Caption of the Day which irritated The Lad.

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