Making democracy safe for the world

It's funny how two things that sound so much alike -- "Making the world safe for democracy" and "Making democracy safe for the world" -- can be so truly different. President George W. Bush has a habit of saying one and practicing the other. I'll go into a great (deplorable) example from Iraq, but the immediate example is obvious: Hamas.

Democracy is great! Let's spread democracy across the Middle East. Wait. We like democracy, but not the results of the election. I got it. Let's undermine the results!

"So long as Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist, my view is we don't have a partner in peace and therefore shouldn't fund a government that is not a partner in peace," Bush told reporters on his plane returning to Washington from Colorado.

The Palestinian people chose democracy. If they chose poorly, they'll have to live with the decision. Let's take a pragmatic look at the United States' options here:

1. Support democracy by encouraging Israel and Palestine to find some common ground, somehow, somewhere. Perhaps volunteer to mediate. Show bonafide support for democracy. Show the Palestinians that their decisions can have serious effects.
2. Show the Palestinians that their decisions can have serious effects by bringing the world's greatest power to bear on their pissant country. Starve police officers' families to prove that democracy works.

Wait. What? How are the Palestinians going to learn that electing Hamas was a bad idea if the United States never gives Hamas a chance to rule? Option 1 lets them learn, and learn well. Option 2 lets them polarize support against the United States, whose actions fit neatly into their viewpoint of the nation as anti-Islam and imperialist.

Besides, this only wrecks America's scant credibility in the region further. Either you're for democracy, or you're for something else, like democracy only when it's convenient.

Try reading an excerpt of a 2003 Bush speech in Michigan. It's hard to not read this first quoted paragraph with a bit of cynicism now, but stick with me:

Many Iraqi Americans know the horrors of Saddam Hussein's regime firsthand. You also know the joys of freedom you have found here in America. (Applause.) You are living proof the Iraqi people love freedom and living proof the Iraqi people can flourish in democracy. (Applause.) People who live in Iraq deserve the same freedom that you and I enjoy here in America. (Applause.) And after years of tyranny and torture, that freedom has finally arrived. (Applause.)

I have confidence in the future of a free Iraq. The Iraqi people are fully capable of self-government. Every day Iraqis are moving toward democracy and embracing the responsibilities of active citizenship. Every day life in Iraq improves as coalition troops work to secure unsafe areas and bring food and medical care to those in need.

Yet the United States sought to pick-and-choose democracy in Iraq, Jack Abramoff-style. People were free to choose from candidates, but didn't know which ones received support on the sly, Seymour Hersh found:

The N.G.O.s "were fighting a rearguard action to get this election straight," and emphasized at meetings that "the idea of picking favorites never works," he said.

"There was a worry that a lot of money was being put aside in walking-around money for Allawi," the participant in the discussions told me. "The N.G.O.s said, 'We don't do this—and, in any case, it's crazy, because if anyone gets word of this manipulation it'll ruin what could be a good thing. It’s the wrong way to do it.' The N.G.O.s tried to drive a stake into the heart of it."

But Hersh suggests the CIA picked those favorites, despite early opposition by a leader within the Coalition Provisional Authority, Larry Diamond:

In his meetings with political leaders in Iraq before the election, Diamond told me, "I said, matter-of-factly, that of course the United States could not operate the way we did in the Cold War. We had to be fair and transparent in everything we did, if we were really interested in promoting democracy—I took it as simply an article of faith."

No, this isn't a rant against Bush. This is a rant against everyone that will corrupt democracy, which depends on a high degree of transparency to operate correctly. The Boston Globe reported today that a big public-relations firm is behind a "grassroots" effort to site a liquified natual gas port. Globe reporters caught them being sneaky, they said they weren't sneaky, and then the Globe caught them changing their voice mail systems to make them more sneaky.

Opposition forces decried the effort:

'When you hear about another citizen action group that is actually a front for a major corporation with seemingly limitless resources, it really does make you feel like you are in a David and Goliath situation," said Lory Newmyer of Save the Brewsters.

(One hopes the Globe ran at least a cursory check on "Save the Brewsters" before quoting Newmyer.)

At least one famous jurist would be appalled. Louis Brandeis said that "Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman." By saying one thing and acting the other way, the miscreants identified in this blog post are corrupting democratic efforts in utterly slimy ways.

We Americans can be the leaders of the free world, or we can be something else. Me, I vote for freedom. The real kind.