This is illustrative in some way of a propensity I've observed in Republicans over the past couple of decades but still can't quite articulate.

It's as if they believe -- and I think most of them do honestly believe this -- that if you can put it into a grammatically correct sentence and by careful selection of ambiguous words and a little equivocation make it sort of true when looked at from as contorted a position as necessary, then it is true.

I think the popular term for this is "truthiness", but that really fails to convey what's going on. There's this wonderful obscure academic term, "reification", which refers to treating purely conceptual entities as if they were real things out in the world -- like "the will of the people" or "the white race" and such. The Republicans have actually built an ideology around reification: saying a thing is so, in their minds, molds reality. Or perhaps more accurately, there is no reality "out there"; the universe exists only as ideas in their pointy little heads.

This is an excusable position for, say, an art critic who lives in a world where everything important actually is made up. But for people who set public policy and have their hands on significant things out there, like nuclear weapons, it's a recipe for disaster.

It should be a surprise that a government built around opposing Bush would lose popularity once Bush was gone.  So, Ari is right.  People are sick and tired of all things Bush, even structure built to oppose him.

The only thing I thing I think Ari is right about is that efforts to strangle Iran's economy worked to make Ahmadinejad less popular.

I think he took the right tone with his statement.

"Obama on Iran"
http://www.politico.com/politico44/wbarchive/whiteboard06152009.html

OBAMA ON IRAN: In his pool spray with Berlusconi, Obama says he doesn't want to make the United States "the issue," but speaks out forcefully on the Iranian election and its aftermath...
"I am deeply troubled by the violence I have been seeing on television. I think the democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent -- all those are universal values and need to be respected. And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they are troubled."
"There appears to be a sense of people who were so hopeful and so engaged and so committed to democracy, who now feel betrayed, and I think it's important that moving forward, whatever investigations that take place are done in a way that does not result in bloodshed, and does not result in people being stifled, in expressing their views." (6:45 p.m.)
TO THE IRANIAN PEOPLE: "I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was. And they should know that the world is watching." (6:47 p.m.)  

http://www.politico.com/politico44/wbarchive/whiteboard06152009.html

Ari is correct - it's not the Obama effect it's the Bush effect. The election of Obama was also the Bush effect, also known as "help, get us out of here!!!!!" (MORAN!!!!)

Viva Obama

Seems to me that the people Republicans hate most are people just like themselves in other countries and the people that hate us the most in other countries are their Republicans.

other possibility: people are sick of being threatened with the Bush/Cheney "freedom agenda"!!!!

Viva Obama

Well, I don't think this is either a Bush OR an Obama effect. When I was in Europe several years ago, I ran into a group of Iranian protestors asking America to stay out of their country so they could reform from within. They were passionate about bringing democracy, but didn't want American help or interference. It was an interesting perspective.

"If you look for the social economic motive, you will not have to wait for history to tell you what was propaganda and what was truth." - George Seldes

It is US exceptionalism and arrogance that wants to appropriate the events in Lebanon and Iran as elements of US discussions of foreign policy.

It was neither the Bush effect nor the Obama effect.

All politics is local first.  The extralocal become shiny objects to distract people.

In both Lebanon and Iran, the events surrounding their elections happened because of internal domestic politics and very little else.  For example, how would an American president fare if the US was seeing 25% inflation?  Remember ole "Whip Inflation Now" Gerald Ford?  And four years later, Jimmy Carter?

And if you were students or were actors in the 1979 revolution, what tactics would you first turn to?  Ask some of the ole DFH's who actually were in Chicago in 1968 what their first thoughts about Bush stealing the 2000 election were.

Whatever Lebanon and Iran point to in significance, it ain't about us. Or US.

50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts

It is so sad, conservatives and neo-cons just can't accept the fact that none of this is about us. The Iranian people are doing this for their country all by themselves. I am watching this all unfold on Twitter, it is just breath taking. 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall history is repeating itself (maybe) in Iran.