Happy Effin' Birthday, Nineteenth Amendment

One of the intellectuals at the main NeoCon think tank spouts off on Sunday morning pundocrat TV about the continuing development of democracy in Iraq and the place of women there-in. Nice to see that the NeoCons are really truly concerned that American style democracy be developed in Iraq. Or is it that they see Iraq as a testing ground for the reshaping of our political landscape? Seems to me that far too many of them are of the opinion that all women should be barefoot and pregnant (and not just metaphorically).

This guy Gerecht is a menace. He has parlayed some college classes, a bit of language training, and a stunt trip into Iran hiding in a box into some sort of fake expertise about things Middle Eastern. No wonder the NeoCons haven't got a clue. They are listening to people like him.

from Norwegianity via arse poetica:

They really don’t give a shit about assuring women the right to vote. Not here, not there. On the anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, the United States of America – where more than half the eligible voters are women – has decided that “democracy” means most people don’t get to cast a ballot:

MR. GERECHT**: Actually, I’m not terribly worried about this. I mean, one hopes that the Iraqis protect women’s social rights as much as possible. It certainly seems clear that in protecting the political rights, there’s no discussion of women not having the right to vote. I think it’s important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States, it was a democracy then. In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we’d all be thrilled.

"I mean, women’s social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy."

**Reuel Marc Gerecht**

from his bio at the Project for a New American Century:

Reuel Marc Gerecht is the Director of the Middle East Initiative at the Project for the New American Century and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

He is recently a contributor to Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign Policy (Editors Robert Kagan & William Kristol; Encounter Books, 2000) and is the author under the pseudonym of Edward Shirley of Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey into Revolutionary Iran (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997).

A former Middle Eastern specialist in the CIA, Mr. Gerecht writes frequently on the Middle East, Central Asia, terrorism, and intelligence, in such publications as the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Middle East Quarterly, Playboy, and Talk.