Baghdad Mayor Ali Fadel:

“We will build a statue for Bush… He is the symbol of freedom.”

Via New York Post

You know, that’s a nice thought Mr. Fadel, but do we really need another statue in Baghdad?

Fadel’s predecessor, Ali al-Haidari, was gunned down Jan. 4 when militants opened fire on his armor-covered BMW as it traveled with a three-car convoy.

Fadel said he received numerous threats on his life as the council chairman, and expects to get many more in his new post.

“My life is cheap,” Fadel said. “Everything is cheap for my country.”

…

“We have a lot of work and we are especially grateful to the soldiers of the U.S.A. for freeing our country of tyranny,” Fadel said.

Poor Mr. Fadel; he doesn’t realize that America isn’t qualified to propagate democracy.

“My conclusion is that America is an open society, the most successful, the most powerful in the world, that doesn’t understand the first principle of an open society, namely that we may be wrong… And as long as we have that position, we are not really qualified to propagate democracy all over the world.”

Via Bloomberg.

Just a note: I’m still adding reactions to Bush’s speech below. Know of a good one I’ve missed? Leave a comment.

We’ve seen some amazing things in Iraq over the past two years, much of it live on television, like I’m doing tonight.

We watched the bombs burst around Baghdad in March of 2003, followed by American tanks driving through a sandstorm.

We watched a dazed Saddam Hussein make an impromptu speech shortly after a failed “assassination strike.”

We watched Iraqi’s information minister claim there were no Americans in Iraq.

We watched Iraqis taking a sledgehammer to a statue of Saddam Hussein, followed by a parade in the streets.

We watched video of the rat hole where American soldiers had just found Saddam Hussein, and images of the former dictator with a tongue suppressor in his mouth.

On the Internet, many of us saw video of Al Qaida terrorists sawing off an innocent man’s head.

We watched Iraqi leaders draft a new constitution, and saw the American leader sign over power to Iraq’s interim government.

Now we’re watching Saddam’s thugs and Bin Laden’s thugs do their best to disrupt Iraq’s first free and fair election. But the election continues, and liberty advances, no thanks to the likes of Ted Kennedy.

Tonight I share Roger Simon’s thoughts on the events as they unfold — CNN has better footage, but FOX’s anchor on the ground seems to be “the face” of this story.

I also share Simon’s optimism and joy. And that of the Iraqi people.

1. First Lady. The wealth and power of a ketchup heiress was no match for a cheerful librarian’s charm.

2. Second Coming. Religious voters of all faiths who attended services weekly made up 61% of Bush’s vote, and evangelical votes gave Bush 35% of his total. Many Bush supporters, including Catholics, African Americans, and Hispanic Voters, chose to reelect the President because of his religious values. Presumably, one of his religious beliefs was that all men will have to give an account of their deeds to God, upon the second coming of Jesus Christ.

3. Third Rail. One of the President’s biggest domestic issues in the campaign was the idea of reforming Social Security (often called the “third rail” of American politics) and letting younger workers set up private savings accounts. While the electorate was evenly divided on this issue, as they were in general, most Americans felt reform was needed, and that Social Security was a looming crisis.

4. Fourth Estate. The press hated George W. Bush, and coverage of his campaign was overwhelmingly negative. Bush’s built-in media disadvantage was best articulated by Newsweek’s Evan Thomas, and 2004’s top prize in this category went to Dan Rather.

5. Fifth Column. Shortly after 9/11, Andrew Sullivan wrote, “The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead - and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column.” There was plenty more where that came from. The war on terror was the central issue of the campaign, but there was a loud minority doing everything it could to convince us of our own defeat. See also “fourth estate.”

6. Sixth Sense. Some say Karl Rove is a genius. Some say he’s evil. Others say he’s both. I tend to agree with this analysis of Rove. It doesn’t take a genius to label John Kerry as a flip-flopper. Even Kerry had to admit it.

7. Seventh Heaven. Bush won. The red states, and the majority of America, rejoiced.

Of course, that doesn’t explain everything, but it touches on the major themes. Here’s a more detailed look at one half of the campaign.

I learned a new word this week — koinobori. It’s a Japanese word that means, basically, “fish kite.”

Cool, no?

Here are some other foreign words you should know.

The first one is the best — taarradhin. It’s an Arabic word that means, basically, “I win, you win.”

And that, my friends, is Habit 4.

Patrick Ruffini destroys Whitman’s anti-Rove argument about the “narrow conservative base.”

Meanwhile, Democrats like Hillary Clinton are scrambling to (appear to) adopt American values and get serious about the terror war, as Miller advocated.

This poor dude broke his Etch-a-Sketch, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

It looks like Germany has finally decided to get tough on terrorism.

Er, tough on terrorist advertisers, that is.

Alas, it was too good to be true.

Go on, see for yourself.

UPDATE: Scratch that, the result seems to have changed.

UPDATE: The result has reversed again. I’ve added a question mark to the title of this post.