Wingers shout for Iraqi democracy out of one side, whisper against it

out of the other:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/11/18/lion_s_den/print.html


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In a column this week, conservative writer and talk-show host Armstrong Williams wrote: "The administration's decision to depose Saddam Hussein represents the first meaningful step in 50 years of attacking the basic problem of hopelessness, tyranny and poverty in that region. This historic step will make democratic reform possible."

Williams chose his words carefully, because while he may believe in democratic reform, he's dismissive of the idea that democracy itself can work in Iraq. Sitting on a panel called "The Media and the War," Williams spoke of Muslims' knack for being wrong about everything. "I can't think of one time when we've had a Muslim on the air, when we asked deep, penetrating questions, where they're on the right side," he said. "You find me a Muslim who, if you ask the right question, they'll come out on the right side of the issue. You can't find them."

After the panel I asked Williams how this Muslim failing bodes for democracy in Iraq. He snorted. "That's a pipe dream," he said, laughing. "Democracy in Iraq?" he repeated, as if he'd never heard anything so preposterous. Noting that the country had never been democratic before, he asked, "What makes you think it's going to work now?"

Many Weekenders shared Williams' doubts. Introducing a panel called "The Iraq Battlefield Now," moderator Kayne Robinson, former chairman of Iowa's Republican Party, indicated that he's stopped believing the administration line. "The premise that people would want passionately to be rescued is of course in question," he said. In fighting the Iraq insurgency, "We're going to kill a lot of Iraqis and restrict their movement. We may well become a guerrilla-manufacturing machine."

"If the war causes the loss of the presidency and of Congress, where are we then?" asked Robinson. "For many of us, the question is a political one that reaches beyond Iraq."


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from

In the lion's den
America's highest-powered conservatives invited me to their posh weekend retreat, expecting me to bash the left. I'm afraid I wasn't a very good guest.

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By Michelle Goldberg