what is the opposite of leadership? vol. II: NYC edition

Just in case you were buying into this whole “continuity of government” argument:

Mr. Bloomberg, who usually delegates the details of the legislative process to aides, personally tried to corral the 26 votes needed in the 51-member Council to pass the measure. He has started calling wavering members to press his case, arguing that the economic trouble requires “continuity of government.” A person who was briefed on one of the conversations said the mayor told members fearful of a backlash that if they voted to allow themselves a third term, “people do forget about things like this.”

Councilman Peter F. Vallone, who said he had spoken with Mr. Bloomberg within the last 48 hours, said the mayor told him it would be too “distracting and time consuming” to hold a referendum on his plan.

Oh, you bet I have more to say. . . .

pointing an ink-stained finger at the truth

The Bush Administration likes to point to the February 2006 bombing of the golden dome of the Askariyya Mosque as the beginning of the sectarian violence—the civil war—in Iraq, and most of the lazy establishment media has just decided to ignore the historical record and parrot that construction. The inconvenient truth of the matter is that sectarian murders were already a regular part of Iraqi life at the time of that first Samarra bombing. A more accurate assessment would trace the beginnings of the civil war to a seemingly much more peaceful event—the parliamentary elections of January 2005.

That Iraqi election, coming only a couple of months after the first US assault on Falujah (a Sunni stronghold), was almost completely boycotted by Sunnis, and the result was a national government dominated by Shiites and Kurds. From that point on, the Sunni’s felt little investment in the US-imposed Iraqi government, and the Shiites felt little constraint on their power.

Funny enough, just two days after that election, Bush made a big show of his democracy agenda, bragging in his State of the Union speech about elections in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian Territories to a purple-fingered joint session of Congress.

Looking at those places a little over two years later, it is hard to imagine a worse advertisement for democracy. . . what’s up with that?