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Campaign workers pasting up posters in Saigon for the September 1967 election, four months before the Tet Offensive. United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam’s presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting. |
Andrew Sullivan writes a post that’s a perfect example of the habitual triumphalism of the warbloggers as they mow down reality with a relentless barrage of verbiage, emotionalism and team spirit.
“In the blogosphere, we are often called to account for previous statements; or asked to concede that we were wrong about something or other. It happens. We’re all human and our judgment is never going to be 100 percent correct,” smarms Andrew. “But in the MSM, such accountability is rare. It seems to me, for example, that when the Iraq elections are a huge success and you have recently editorialized in favor of their postponement, you might owe your readers an acount of what you misjudged, or at least an acknowledgment that you have been proven wrong. So check the NYT editorial today. No such acknowledgment. The difference between the blogosphere and the MSM: more accountability.
OK, when you’re finished laughing over the notion of the fragile flower of “accountability” flourishing in the perpetual rock-fight that is the political blog warzone,(I assume Andrew means the political blogs, since he didn’t mention fact-checking the knitting, cooking or baby blogs)let’s look at the NYT editorial Saint Andrew of Blogistan is so smugly criticizing as being “wrong” on The Day After Iraqis Liberated Themselves.
After summarizing the ethnic rivalries that exist in Iraq, the editorial states, “Given the violence in Sunni areas, even voters who wish to take part may hesitate to turn out. In some places, the polls may not open at all.”
NYT: If the elections wind up taking place under current conditions, the new government could wind up with little or no Sunni representation when the new constitution was prepared.
Disputing that one, Sullivan? OK, score another one for the Times.
NYT:Many Americans – and many Iraqis – worry that if the elections were postponed, the terrorists would feel empowered by having won. That might indeed be the case for the next few months. But that outcome would be far outweighed by the danger that would come from a civil war, with the Sunni territory becoming a no man’s land where terrorists could operate at will.
Let’s use the example of the British Hercules C130 shot down trying to land at Balad, killing all aboard, of which the British said, “”It is thought the investigation into what caused the crash could prove difficult in the hostile territory.” Ponder the fact that the resistance can take down fixed wing aircraft. And, what’s that about “hostile territory?” Hrm. Advantage – Times: right again.
In fact, the only way Sullivan can claim the NYT editorial is “wrong” is by ignoring the fact that it was written about what is likely to occur during and after the election and pretending that voting was a “success” because “under 200 Iraqis” (revised downward from his original success metric of 500 dead Iraqis) died on the day it happened. Yes, that was Sullivan’s metric for success, along with “25 percent turnout for the Sunnis” which didn’t happen as far as anyone knows, but hey, this is standard in the warblogosphere, where jihad against the “MSM” is mandatory and “facts” are established by repetition and volume, not by objectively observing the real world.
The Times editorial defines “success” as something that will be detectable after a civil war fails to materialize and the various factions in Iraq negotiate a way to coexist. Andrew, eager to celebrate, crow, and cry over photos of purple fingers, defines success as whatever happens short of a catastrophic bloodbath and slams the cover shut on that book.
Of course, while I was plodding along writing this, Justin already posted about St. Andrew the Accountable. Oh well, here’s a double dose for the Dish.