The polls just closed, and there was 72% turnout with mimimal sporadic violence. The ball is now in the MSM's court. Or, to use perhaps a more appropriate cliche, the Iraqi people have given the MSM plenty of rope.
About 40 people were killed by 8 suicide attacks, according to the tube. Well, those deaths are horrible, but nowhere near the bloodbath that was predicted. Remember that Andrew Sullivan, who was once a supporter of the war, had set forth these criteria for success:
Here are my criteria: over 50 percent turnout among the Shia and Kurds, and over 30 percent turnout for the Sunnis. No massive disruption of voting places; no theft of ballots. Fewer than 500 murdered.
Thank above that Andrew's criteria were met...by a long shot. Professor Juan Cole at the University of Michigan is also taking some heat from the Belmont Club:
Think of what it means for anyone to dare vote in Fallujah at all, despite the penalties prescribed by terrorists, some of whom are certain to be kinsmen. And when was the time, at any Faculty meeting, that the halt and the blind tramped in to vote (cars are banned from approaching the polling precincts for security reasons) at the risk of death? If the electoral process was a charade, it was one in which too many participated too willingly.
Well said. Captain Ed on turnout:
Nationwide: 72%
Baghdad: 80%
South: 92%
Najaf: 80%
Karbala: 90%Hell, you can't find numbers like that in America -- except in certain precincts in King County, WA and Milwaukee.
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