Iraqis show their courage by voting, much to the dismay of terrorists and Democrats

The elections are over in Iraq.

Here’s an overview. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men and women – much braver than I would have previously given them credit for, based on my limited experience – literally took their lives in their hands yesterday to make their voices heard for the first time in their own country.

President George W. Bush said, basically, “This is a good thing.” Makes sense, he’s got a lot riding on this. If it fails, American troops are going to be there longer.

Would-be president John “sore loser” Kerry was quick to pipe up with, “Whoa, there, let’s not ‘overhype’ this.” That’s not an actual quote, except for the “overhype” part.

I bet the Iraqis, who have never until this point seen a ballot with more than one person on it, and who faced a very serious chance of getting blown up for voting, don’t think anyone is “overhyping” anything.

It was difficult to tell if it was sarcasm or the Associated Press was being serious when it accompanied its story about the elections with four nearly identical (by the way, don’t ever use the phrase “nearly identical,” it doesn’t make sense) photos of John Kerry talking to NBC’s “Meet the Press” and one photo of Condoleezza Rice talking to CBS’ “Face the Nation” about the election.

It is certain though that nearly half the headlines focused more on Kerry’s skepticism than on the huge landmark this wounded country has just achieved.

“It is hard to say that something is legitimate when whole portions of the country can’t vote and doesn’t vote,” (portions doesn’t?) Kerry said. The story didn’t clarify whether he was talking about the Iraq elections or his loss to Bush.

After all, at somewhere between 60 and 72 percent, the voter turnout in Iraq was higher than that the U.S.’s barely 60 percent.

It seems you can’t hold an election in any country anymore without John Kerry yelling, “It’s not fair! It doesn’t count!” before the final vote is in.

I wonder exactly what Kerry would be doing right now were he in the White House. If he had arranged for the election, instead of Bush, would it then be legit? Who knows? He never told anyone what his “plan” was. That’s why he lost the election.

In fact, an unrelated story quoted George Soros, the biggest financial contributor to his campaign, as saying Kerry lost because he was a flawed candidate who “did not actually offer a credible and coherent alternative.” Well, that’s true. But I digress.

I recall watching the news during the last election in Iraq, in which every station’s anchor said (with a straight face, nonetheless) “Saddam Hussein won by a landslide today” as if he were not the only person on the ballot and as if voting against him wouldn’t result in whole families disappearing.

So why was that one “legitimate,” while this one is “cautiously welcomed,” and “overhyped”?

Now are you going to tell me there is no media bias going on here? Or that it only takes place on the part of Fox News, the “partisan arm of the Republican National Committee”? Please.

The Iraqis stood up to the terrorists in an astonishing show of courage – for which I applaud them. And the Democrats can whine about voter suppression and unfairly distributed polling machines all day, but until someone tries to blow them up at the polling stations, I don’t want to hear it.