Happy Iraq Voting
Reported by Ellen - January 28, 2005
In a video report called Election Expectations on FOXNews.com, Brit Hume chats with Dan Senor, formerly of the CPA in Iraq and now a FOX News contributor, about all the good news about the upcoming elections in Iraq.
Hume started off the conversation by asking about the Sunni participation in the elections. Senor told us that Sunni turnout will be low because of threats of violence, not because they don't want to vote. But don't worry, be happy. Sunnis will be sure to have a place at the table when the new government is chosen by the National Assembly, the body being voted on this week. "The majority of Iraqis want this to work" and there won't be a civil war.
Before Senor got to reassuring us about Sunni participation Hume asked about security measures. Senor went through a long list of martial law conditions being imposed that sounded anything but free or democratic. But that aspect seemed to fly over the heads of either Hume or Senor. Instead, Senor sounded proud as he told us that Sunnis can vote anywhere in Iraq, not just in the province where they live.
Wait a minute! Did he just say Sunnis can vote anywhere in Iraq? Wasn't it the Republican party that was so insistent that American ballots be cast only in the voters' precinct even if they didn't know where that was? How come neither FOX nor the Republicans are worried about that situation in Iraq? And who is going to count and verify the voting process anyway? Diebold? Halliburton? The US military?
FOX News was so concerned with voter fraud last year during the presidential campaign, that you could barely watch an hour of it without seeing John Fund, author of "Stealing Elections" talking about how important it is to make sure that "Donald Duck" doesn't vote. FOX's interest in Mr. Fund seems to have disappeared the moment George Bush declared victory. I have a suspicion neither Fund nor his concerns are about to resurface in Iraq.
