4/02/2007

Pence: "Downtown Baghdad == Indiana"

From IndyStar.com: Pence likens Baghdad market to 1 in Indiana
U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., traveling Sunday in Iraq's capital with three other GOP members of Congress, compared a shopping area there to a "normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime."
Yeah, because when I go down the street, I need a detachment of military guards to escort me:
Pence, speaking after a heavily guarded hourlong walk through the newly fortified market, echoed comments made by U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona and others that the capital was getting safer.
"I, too, find myself leaving my day at the market in Baghdad with a new sense of cautious optimism that freedom might just work for these people," Pence said during a news conference inside the fortified Green Zone.
First, you gotta be amazed at the kind of denialism these people cling to. "It's safer! It's just like back home!" This dementia persists despite stories like these coming out of Iraq every damn day. (Of course, that's only because the "liberal media" "only reports the bad news".) Second you also gotta marvel at the condescension in that statement: "freedom might just work for these people". "These people", like they're barely even human, like they're some concept rather than human beings. And this man is supposed to represent us?