Election Day Meddling

Carpetbagger mentions that Saddam’s verdict is to be announced a few days before the mid-term election and suspects this may have been rigged by the Bushies to help the GOP in the election. But I just don’t see how that happens. Republicans certainly don’t want to talk about Iraq right now, and the few people who still hate Saddam enough that they think this catastrophe was justified were surely the diehards who were already going to vote Republican. And so this suddenly brings a big focus on Iraq at a time that it’s clearly become an albatross to all Republicans.

And then there’s the fact that there is likely to be some sort of negative reaction to what many Iraqis will see as a kangaroo court. At a minimum there is likely to be an increase in violence that day. And with the deadline known this far in advance, there is likely to be a big event planned to show their disgust with the process. And sure, they’re likely to go into lockdown mode that day, but that still isn’t enough to ensure that this special day isn’t missed; particularly if the insurgents watch our news broadcasts and are aware of what is at stake on our end, which Republicans insist is the case.

And what about the longshot? What if the court announces that they didn’t have enough evidence against Saddam and find him Not Guilty. Sure, that’s got a super-slim chance of happening, but who knows? Crazier things have happened. And could you imagine the disaster that would be for the Republicans?

All this just seems so obvious that I’m having a hard time believing that even the Bushies could be so delusional that they’d think this was a good idea. Sure, they’ve set an awfully high standard for delusional behavior, but this really seems beyond even them. In fact, I wonder if this is really a big “Fuck You” from the Iraqis themselves, wishing to screw things over for Bush and hasten the removal of our troops.

Maybe not, who knows. But I don’t see how this works out well for the GOP, and if things turn out as badly as they could, this may be seen as the final nail in the neo-con coffin. Even if things turn out well that day in Iraq, a Democratic landslide on Election Day would surely reflect voter preference against the Iraq Adventure.