After the Vote

I got stuck in traffic this morning. It took me over an hour and a half to get to work, and I couldn't have been happier. That meant I had more time than usual to listen to Laura Ingraham's show as she discussed the voting in Iraq and played audio clips of the news coverage.

I couldn't get enough this weekend. Saturday night, a couple hours after voting started in Iraq itself, I watched the Fox News coverage, and there were videos of a dozen or so people walking to the polls. Geraldo was thrilled, but it didn't seem like the turnout was very heavy to me.

Then Sunday morning, as the polls were closing, I watched, and the videos showed hordes of people heading off to vote and standing in line to be frisked and allowed into the polling place. By then, Geraldo was beside himself.

It's hard to understand how people can watch the Iraqi voters and not be moved. The joy on their faces as they held up purple ink-stained fingers for the cameras, or as the men danced in the streets, was unforgettable. One woman I heard on the radio said, "Our country has been born again."

A couple brothers in Iraq have been blogging for over a year at Iraq the Model, and their posts for yesterday ("The people have won") and today ("The day after") are not to be missed. One line has been quoted on Fox News, I believe by Fred Barnes, and by Hugh Hewitt on his show: "I walked forward to my station, cast my vote and then headed to the box, where I wanted to stand as long as I could, then I moved to mark my finger with ink, I dipped it deep as if I was poking the eyes of all the world's tyrants." And that's exactly what Iraq's voters did Sunday.

I am so proud of the steadfastness of President Bush, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, and all the other leaders who have stood with the coalition in Iraq. I'm proud of the troops, both the coalition forces and the newly trained Iraqi military and police. And I'm proud of the people of Iraq who walked in defiance of terror to cast their votes.

A friend emailed me a quote he heard from a caller on Dennis Prager's show. The man had been opposed to the war in Iraq until Sunday. He said, "This is the best tasting crow I've ever had to eat." It seems even some people on the left finally get it.

But not everyone. There are still the naysaying mouthpieces of the Democratic Party, of course. But I asked someone at work, who is originally from Iran, what his take was on the Iraq elections. He was skeptical. He said it's like taking a kid and sending him off to college. If the kid isn't ready for college, there's no way he can succeed there. It's the same way with Iraq, my co-worker said. They have lived under a strongman's thumb for so long, they don't know how to rule themselves, so he doesn't expect them to do well with democracy. He said Iran is doing a better job of heading toward democracy, because they're not trying to get there all at once. They've done the strict theocracy already and have loosened up some, and the democracy movement is working its way into society. He thinks they'll be ready before Iraq is.

We'll see. For myself, I'm not ready to give up hope. I'm not ready to sink into skeptical pessimism. After all, how ready was our country when we first started? And yet we made a pretty good go of it.

Congratulations, Iraq! May you show yourselves worthy of walking the path to liberty that you have begun.