A Model of Democracy

Today's London Guardian recounts Bush's claims on the magic of democracy:

For the big Bush idea, earnestly repeated on stump after stump, is to make our world safer and happier by making it more democratic. One person, one grin. And those of us who've spent decades immersed in American politics can see much general, good-hearted sense in that. Democratic nations (at least until last year) tend not to go to war without good reason. Ordinary voting people, left to themselves, are the wisest arbiters we have. Relative freedom works better than autocracy or religious zealotry.

So take the president at his word. Let Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and the rest import their ballot boxes and train their single transferable mullahs. Let's gently squeeze aside the leftover colonels, manipulative ayatollahs and corrupt monarchies. Farewell, Mubarak, Assad and (yes!) the House of Saud. Let's give democracy its chance. It may be a stance too interventionist, a panacea too pre-emptive, but at least the theory has benign resonance. Baghdad and Kabul, over the next few months, have great trails to blaze.

The column then brings us a muckrake-by-muckrake account of the U.S. election - and asks,

This, Bush says, is his last election. This is his last chance to show us how it's done. With soft-money ads and surrogate slurs and grotesque simplifications cooked in political hothouses? Is that the way? Is that what Cuba and Libya, not to mention the rest of us, have to look forward to?