Building Democracies? Schmelding Democracies!

This is one of the most important, uplifting times in history, as the US tries to change the course of world history by introducing democracy to the Middle East.

But you'd never know it if you were John Meacham, the managing editor of Newsweek. Asked by Tim Russert on Meet the Press about the most important story of 2005, he said it was Iraq, and especially the negative aspects of it -- prewar intelligence, competency of the leadership. Then he said:

But there's not the good part which happened in the '60s. There's not a civil rights movement. There's not a race to the moon, where things are-- show what government can do in a positive way, and I think this has been a difficult year for government as an idea.

Really? Did Meacham miss the purple fingertips in Iraq? The aforementioned burning desire for freedom among a supressed people? The cessation of Kaddafi's nuclear program?

His reaction is not surprising. The elete are depressed, deeply, clinically depressed. Theirs is a grey, dark world, and Meacham has given us a picture window view into it.

h/t Best of the Web