After the Iraqi election.

It's great to wake up to the news that the Iraqi elections are already over and a huge success. I skitter around from website to website this morning, checking first to see that in fact it is true that things went brilliantly -- I'm loving all the inked index fingers held aloft by smiling voters -- and next to see what the various bloggers are finding to talk about. It looks like the topic after celebrating the success is observing MSM and anti-war bloggers for evidence of disappointment at the lack of bad news.

Here's my advice to anti-war bloggers who want to avoid embarrassing themselves: express relief that the feared violence did not occur, happiness for the Iraqi people who got to vote, concern about the new government's willingness to be fair to the people in the more violent areas who were deterred from coming out to vote, and reconfigure your anti-war position into concern about the great risk that was taken. Worry about the next war: the more success in Iraq, the more inspiration to take on bolder ventures, and the next one might go horribly. Like a defeated candidate, focus on the next election. I heard one commentator on NPR say that after the great success in voting for the Afghans, the Palestinians, and the Iraqis, it's beginning to "look like a trend." What if the neo-cons are right? Consider it -- without your usual reflexive invective. If they turn out to be right, don't you have to be happy that you were wrong?