Two Massachusetts Senators Embarrass Themselves Over Iraqi Elections
February 2, 2005
By MassNews Staff
       Regardless of political leanings, it’s impossible to dismiss the significance of what happened over the weekend in Iraq. 
           A nation that was accustomed to tyranny came out en masse to vote in the first election in 50 years. 
            Yet here in Massachusetts, our two Senators are writing-off these courageous people who are risking their lives to realize the dream of self-government and writing-off the U.S. troops who are risking their lives to make it happen.
           Our junior senator, John F. Kerry, came out over the weekend with a volley of sour-grape anti-Iraqi missives.  He said on Meet the Press with Tim Russert on Sunday that “no one in the United States should try to over-hype this election.”.
Sour grapes, Sen. Kerry. You are downplaying the results of a nationwide, popular election because you just had one declare you a loser. 
       When Russert asked Kerry if the world would accept the election results as legitimate, he answered: “A kind of legitimacy. I mean, it's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote.” 
       At present reckoning, between 60% and 72% of the Iraqi population cast a ballot, despite the fact that it was threatened that the “streets would run with blood” of those trying to vote. 
       Here at home, we are accustomed to getting a 50% turnout, and I don’t recall Kerry calling that type of turnout as “illegitimate.”   When he himself was re-elected to the Senate in 2002, there was only a 44% voter turnout.  Does he question the legitimacy of his own position in the Senate?
       But it’s worse than that. We have shown in previous articles that the Iraqi people have legitimate cause for concern. We have told those people that “democracy” must include “homosexual marriage.” And the insurgents there are taking that message across all of Iraq.
       How many of our citizens know that fact? Or that our Senators from Massachusetts are largely responsible for that message? What else are these two Senators going to demand from an “independent” viable democracy in Iraq? Why is no one else in the press here raising that question?
       Are we the only ones in the America who have noticed that serious problem?

Sen. Kennedy Is Leading the Nation in Deadly Foolishness
        Our senior Senator, Ted Kennedy, is taking the lead in this deadly foolishness. At a speech before Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies last Thursday, he stated: “Sunday's elections are not a cure for the violence and instability.”  He continued that the real problem wasn’t the murderous thugs who were beheading people in the middle of the street, but the American soldiers who are there protecting the people. Kennedy’s repeated calls to pull out immediately could have been interpreted as a sign that the U.S. was willing to leave Iraq under the siege of the terrorists because we didn’t think their elections were worth defending. 
       This morning Iraqis are dancing in the street.  They are on their way to self-determination.  Most here at home are happy and relieved that Iraq held their first elections and the majority of the population participated.  The victory does not belong to George Bush or the GOP, but to the Iraqis themselves who risked their very lives to cast their votes.  The only losers are the insurgents who tried in vain to stop the elections together with the two Senators from Massachusetts, who, in their own way tried to suppress the significance of the democratization of Iraq.
       But we must continue to worry until we decide whether “democracy” must require homosexual “marriage.”