NYT Editorial: Wrong On All Counts

Just before the Iraqi election, the NY Times boldly editorialized its prediction: low turnout in many parts of Iraq would deligitimize the election. Fortunately and gleefully, they proved themselves once again blinded by the nherently negative view of mankind that MSM shares with the Left.

For a politicial persuasion that is quick to see conspiracies and dark consequences, the NYT was unable to correlate what they'd seen in other countries with what might happen in Iraq. In country after country, when citizens are give the first chance to vote in honest national elecdtions, they come in overwhelming turn-out in the face of considerable risk to vote. And worse, the NYT editorial staff was unable to connect the dots to see that a massive Shiite turn-out in the face of a Sunni-fueled insurgency would so deligitimize the Sunni position that they would have to admit defeat and join the government.

And it has happened! According to the LATimes:

The shift was in evidence Friday at Baghdad's Umm Qura mosque, headquarters of the hard-line Muslim Scholars Assn. After the prayers, a government official was permitted to issue a call for Sunni participation in future electoral rounds.

"We ask you to participate in the next elections," said Adnan Mohammed Salman, a spokesman for the Ministry of Religious Endowments, which oversees the country's mosques. "We must prepare and unite our ranks."

By allowing such a statement to be issued at the mosque, Sunni leaders apparently are acknowledging that the best way to protect their community's interests is through participation in the political process.

Once senses that the NYT editorialists were hoping for failure in Iraq -- like a 10 year old praying that the too-small box under the tree really could be a new bike. Blinders firmly in place, they made their bet, and lost for all the world to see.