Lost In The Shuffle

Yesterday, for some reason, I subscribed to the OxBlog RSS feed. There, in a longish post attacking the credibility of Joe Wilson, I read the following:

But the media seems to cover the inaccuracies of George Bush's statements quite well, leaving it to us bloggers to expose the small fry like Joe Wilson.

While I disagree with the specific point about exposing small fry - especially Joe Wilson since Rove and Co have done a wonderful job on him, as has Somerby - I do agree with the general point: the media covers big events just fine, and bloggers can and should bring "smaller" stories to light. So...

Lost in the shuffle of Rovegate and the introductory chapter in The Saga of Mr. Roberts, two stories surfaced yesterday and today that need a little more attention. The first is that we appear to have attempted to influence the Iraqi elections. The second is that the current draft of the Iraqi constitution contains seriously regressive measures against women. What are we to make of these events? If the goal of influencing the elections was to prevent Sharia Law from prevailing then we should have done a better job of it. Leave it to the neo-cons to screw up fixing an election when said fixing would have done some good. I can hear the proponents of the war protesting already:"But wait! We should respect their wishes! If Sharia is what they want, they should have it - they're a democracy now!" I would, however, reply: "Please recall that you, sir, are not a cultural relativist."