J _ R K - Pat, I'd like to buy an "E"

[kandrathe]

Pat Sajak says...

This is really about the Iraqi election. What I think is most marvelous is how the Iraqi people are embracing self determination. Kerry, Kennedy, and the rest of the world be damned.

In the end it does not matter what is in the funny papers in the US, Europe, or the rest of the world. All that matters now is that the Iraqi's get what they deserve, a chance to have prosperous lives free from tyranny. How ever you feel about the causes of the war, you must see now that given some time, this fledgling new state will grow legs and walk on its own. I hope it goes just as Allawi predicted, that within 18 months they will have the mechanisms in place to start demobilizing the troops. Let's not allow these sour grapes to cut the legs out from under Iraq.

[eppie]

Pat Sajak says...

This is really about the Iraqi election.  What I think is most marvelous is how the Iraqi people are embracing self determination.  Kerry, Kennedy, and the rest of the world be damned. 

In the end it does not matter what is in the funny papers in the US, Europe, or the rest of the world.  All that matters now is that the Iraqi's get what they deserve, a chance to have prosperous lives free from tyranny.  How ever you feel about the causes of the war, you must see now that given some time, this fledgling new state will grow legs and walk on its own.  I hope it goes just as Allawi predicted, that within 18 months they will have the mechanisms in place to start demobilizing the troops.  Let's not allow these sour grapes to cut the legs out from under Iraq.
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Nobody in the world (pro or anti Iraq-war) would say that democracy or free elections are bad.
What Kerry says (don't overhype these elections) is of course 100 % true. What we see is that Bush uses these free elections to prove his right (I don't blame him, but very fair it isn't).
If I had the biggest army in the world, and I didn't care that people (among who my own soldiers) would die, and I would even personally gain by invading countries, maybe I would also do it then......but that doesn't make it right.

We can now not just because the results is "free elections in Iraq" start forgetting about Bush' lies and mistakes.
We all know that the new government is pro-USA, we all know that the new government will not contain any sunites (or what they are called in english). I guess there will be a big chance that Irak will turn in to a more modern state, without muslim extremism and with educated people.......mainly because it was also like that before the war...... however one thing is for sure....if this pro-USA leaders will start torturing en killing their own civilians, don't count on George Bush.

[Guest]

I always wonder how people happen to find stuff like this? Im just curious.

Do you actually read his web site regularly? Or if you found it in a link, I wonder just who it was that made a habit of keeping up on Pats site.

[jahcs]

I always wonder how people happen to find stuff like this? Im just curious.

Do you actually read his web site regularly? Or if you found it in a link, I wonder just who it was that made a habit of keeping up on Pats site.
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Pat Sajak's comments apparently were significant enough to merit mention on a few national news broadcasts, and of course talk radio jumped on the story.

[Occhidiangela]

Pat Sajak says...

This is really about the Iraqi election.  [right][snapback]66871[/snapback][/right]

Right! So Mr Sajak decides to take this time to make "it" about his sentiments regarding Senator Kerry. Pot calls kettle black.

Senator Kerry has political obligations to fill in his daily duties, to include public rhetoric. Whether or not political rhetoric ever contains "value added" is a moot point. It's part of the Great Game. Mr Sajak's blog leaves him free to make any comment he wants to. So far, so good, but his rant evokes a word I have deep affection for, one that starts with a "t," and ends with a "t." Lovely Vanna, of course, figures in this discussion. More on that later.

But first, the salient points:

Why all the media response and comment? I could care less what Tim Robbins says about politics, likewise Mr Sajak. I heard Sean Hanady commenting on this yesterday, on the car radio, and I switched the channel in frustration. (I am down to once a week, maybe, on Hanady from about three times a week three years ago. PBS is looking better every day, warts and all.)

Let's look at selected Mr Sajak and Senator Kerry comments through the Rogue's lens.

On the very day Iraqis were voting, most of them for the first time in their lives, here’s some of what Kerry had to say on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: "It is significant that there is a vote in Iraq, but ... no one in the United States should try to overhype this election.

Hmm, an expected internal, American political theme that is not news to anyone literate, or who has a TV or radio.

This election is a sort of demarcation point, and what really counts now is the effort to have a legitimate political reconciliation, and it's going to take a massive diplomatic effort and a much more significant outreach to the international community

Absolutely correct.

than this administration has been willing to engage in

.

A paid political announcement.

Note: My observation is that significant outreach was made, and has been made, and has been rebuffed. It was not for lack of trying, it was a matter of

Rejection.
(possibly due to packaging, or as the chef is me would say, poor presentation.)

It took active political choices to reject the outreach, for reasons that no longer matter since the rejection is the result that leaves the playing field in its current condition.

Absent that, we will not be successful in Iraq,"

A belaboring of the obvious, but nonetheless TRUE.

More Senator Kerry: "It's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote." (Sound familiar?)<= Mr Sajak.

The can't is a different case than the doesn't, and Senator Kerry knows that, from our own country. More people did not vote at all than voted for either him, or Pres Bush. This in a stable democracy. Do we apply a higher standard to "burgeoning" democracies? Should we? Is that fair?

The rhetoric is empty. An election does not a democracy make. Iraq is at present a nation engaged in a civil war. It is an occupied nation. It is, at best, a nascent "democracy in progress." Iraq may, like Kenya did, as Haiti has done, fail as a democracy. It may go the way of Yugoslavia and become three countries within the next decade.

Back to the carping:

Every voter in those lines was, in ways big and small, a hero, and should be admired and supported. How could anyone look at voters dancing in the streets and proudly holding up their blue fingers to indicate what they had so bravely done, and not be moved? It seems to me that Sunday was not the time to attempt to minimize or trivialize what millions of Iraqis did that day. That could wait at least 24 hours, couldn’t it?

Dear Pat: I find your connection tenuous, as the rocks thrown were at Pres Bush, not the folks who braved the car bombs to vote.

On these and other various grounds, Mr Sajak finally concludes that Senator Kerry is a jerk. I think he went looking for jerkness; he thinks he found it.


Dear Mr Sajak:

I watched your show, when I ever did, for two reasons: 1) because Vanna is hot in anything she wears 2) to help my kids solve the word puzzles. (I am a crossword veteran.) Your utterances were and are a reason to turn off the set.

As to your epithet slinging, I respectfully remind you that Senator Kerry is a career politician. That job description demands rhetoric and hyperbole, belaboring of the obvious, and the periodic outpouring of ponderous rhetoric. Ever heard of "shock and awe?" "Tax cuts solve everything?" Bombast crosses all party lines.

Perhaps you, Mr Sajak, were looking for a reason to find fault with Senator Kerry. A winner are you: you found one! Of course, you are possibly being redundant, considering the profession of your target, or you may even be using the wrong epithet!

"Senator Kerry, you are a politician!" Is this not insult enough, sir?

I leave you to ponder that conundrum at your leisure. While you are at your pondering, Mr Sajak, I'd like to buy an "i" . . . you self _mportant tw_t.

Occhi

[Minionman]

Pat Sajak says...

This is really about the Iraqi election.&nbsp; What I think is most marvelous is how the Iraqi people are embracing self determination.&nbsp; Kerry, Kennedy, and the rest of the world be damned.&nbsp;

In the end it does not matter what is in the funny papers in the US, Europe, or the rest of the world.&nbsp; All that matters now is that the Iraqi's get what they deserve, a chance to have prosperous lives free from tyranny.&nbsp; How ever you feel about the causes of the war, you must see now that given some time, this fledgling new state will grow legs and walk on its own.&nbsp; I hope it goes just as Allawi predicted, that within 18 months they will have the mechanisms in place to start demobilizing the troops.&nbsp; Let's not allow these sour grapes to cut the legs out from under Iraq.
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The success of the government depends on what type of government these guys who got elected put together, how the handle the violence, and other such details. Those are the ones I plan on watching for.

[Occhidiangela]

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This part, IMO, is wishful thinking.

How ever you feel about the causes of the war, you must see now that given some time, this fledgling new state will grow legs and walk on its own.  I

Given time? Will grow legs? Iraq needs so much more than time. Iraq needs in depth support and patience.

Given opportunity, the various parties in whose interest a democratic and stable Iraq is NOT -- give them time and the usual lack of will in the international community -- and you will see Iraq have its so called "legs" cut out from under it, leaving yet another handicapped state.

I will offer a different case that has less economic potential, Haiti, as evidence that even in compariativley simple, isolatable, relatively benign conditions the international community, of which the US is a part, can only do so much.

Iraq is at least two orders of magnitude more difficult, maybe more.

Occhi

[kandrathe]

This part, IMO, is wishful thinking.
Given time?&nbsp; Will grow legs?&nbsp; Iraq needs so much more than time.&nbsp; Iraq needs in depth support and patience.

Given opportunity, the various parties in whose interest a democratic and stable Iraq is NOT -- give them time and the usual lack of will in the international community -- and you will see Iraq have its so called "legs" cut out from under it, leaving yet another handicapped state.

I will offer a different case that has less economic potential, Haiti, as evidence that even in compariativley simple, isolatable, relatively benign conditions the international community, of which the US is a part, can only do so much.&nbsp;

Iraq is at least two orders of magnitude more difficult, maybe more.

Occhi
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Yes, I agree. Investment, reconstruction, patience, and security.

The big difference would be that Haiti is not sitting on a mountain of gold. Iraq's neighbors to the south choose to horde that wealth for a select few, so it will be interesting to see how this new nation decides to care for it's citizens. Without those legs, it devolves into another 3rd world pool for the hopelessness of the disenfrancised.