This Is What Democracy Looks Like?

Here's an idea: Now that Janice Rogers Brown has been confirmed to the DC Court of Appeals, maybe we should just put that court in charge of Iraq. Brown would surely be at home there, given she, according to CivilRights.org, "has likened minimum wage and national labor relations laws to a 'socialist revolution.'"

For we are certainly bringing a Janice Rogers Brown-style democracy to the Middle East. Check out this sobering story on Morning Edition that asserts: "More than half a million Iraqis have fled to neighboring Syria to escape the war-related violence in Iraq. Neither Syria's government nor the United Nations consider them to be refugees. And the Damascus government has begun ordering some of the Iraqis to leave."

That NPR segment is full of heart-warming stories about the goodness and light the U.S. invasion of Iraq has helped create. Brothels in Damascus "staffed" with 14-year-old Iraqi prostitutes. Teenagers working 12 hour days 7 days a week to make $60 a month--to support their families, as adults can't get jobs in a country that doesn't want them and has a 20% unemployment rate already.

I'm sure every one of those 500,000 Iraqis in exile thank the U.S. and President Bush every night. The world is a much safer, better place.