The results are coming in:

Iraqi election officials said Monday that they were investigating “unusually high” vote totals in 12 Shiite and Kurdish provinces, where as many as 99 percent of the voters were reported to have cast ballots in favor of Iraq’s new constitution. The investigation raised the possibility that the results of the referendum could be called into question.

Back when Saddam held a “referendum,” pundits and the America media used a 99% “for” vote as prima facie evidence that the election was rigged. Does the same standard apply today?

. . . in Iraq:

Q. What is it about Iraq that Americans don’t understand?
A. It’s been hard for Americans to accept how complicated it is there. Most Americans want an up-down, yes-no answer to whether we’re right or wrong, succeeding or failing. Certainly the summer of 2003 when I was reporting that piece it was anything but simple. What interested me most was how Iraqis and Americans viewed each other. There were misunderstandings and suspicions, but a fair amount of good will on both sides and a desire to reach out and find out who these other people were. That has changed. The violence is so enormous.

Hmmm, Americans not seeing the complexity in Iraq? I can’t imagine why they aren’t. After a couple of years of listening to the Bush administration talk about “freedom” versus the “terrorists,” you’d think everyone would understand the factions and motives in play over there.

If you happen to live in a place where railroad tracks offer better routes than roads, I suppose that this might be a interesting, albeit slow, way of getting around. But I don’t think I’d try it on abandoned lines that look like they’re about to fall apart–especially the bridges.

Granted, bar association columns generally don’t showcase prose in its highest art form, but Ms. Miers’ contributions in that forum weren’t much deeper than what she now has at “her” blog.

In noting that Australia is replacing the United States as the destination of choice for international students, Richard Bradley notes:

It’s clearly no coincidence that this student exodus has occurred during the unilateralist presidency of George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. The rest of the world doesn’t like us very much now, and that’s just another example of how a war that was supposed to make us safer has actually weakened our international position.

America’s international standing has been an issue the past four years. The optimistic interpretation is that the world continues to like America and Americans; it simply dislikes American (i.e., the Bush administration’s) policy. I hope Mr. Bradley’s take is wrong.