BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

No mud-slinging here

27 comments on No mud-slinging here

No mud-slinging here

: Via IraqTheModel, I find a transcript of an Iraqi election commercial:

An old man rounding a corner into an alleyway looks up and sees young, masked militants facing him down. A couple joins the old man. Slowly, more and more people join the old man.

Voiceover: On January 30, we meet our destiny and our duty. We are not alone, and we are not afraid. Our strength is in our unity; together we will work and together prevail.

Those joining the man now outnumber the militants. He nods and they move forward. The militants run away.

Written on screen: Don’t worry about Iraq. We are its people. We will allow no one to deprive us of our rights. For the building of Iraq: Peace, freedom and democracy. The heroes of Iraq.

More here.

27 responses to “No mud-slinging here”

  1. Franky Avatar
    Franky

    What they don’t have their own Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? Doesn’t sound much like democracy to me.

  2. Oliver Avatar
    Oliver

    Little hard to have mudslinging commercials when candidates can’t identify themselves for fear of being blown up.

  3. J. Peden Avatar
    J. Peden

    Right, Oliver. You are coming around. Congrats.

  4. tex Avatar
    tex

    Where’s Omar’s campaign commercial? It’s not like he can’t afford one.
    Isn’t that what the $11,000 + wire tranfers to Ali were for?

  5. VARepublicMan Avatar
    VARepublicMan

    To me, these comments show just how much we are able to take for granted in this country (and that’s a good thing). Our primary worry is the number of “unfair” ads in the election. The Iraqis must count the number of bombs, mortar rounds and assassination attempts. I want the people of Iraq to experience what we take for granted.

  6. EverKarl Avatar
    EverKarl

    What a surprise: Jeff posts something about the upcoming election in Iraq and Oliver stops by to make a snide comment. Just don’t suggest that Oliver doesn’t care about the election or the Iraqis; he gets very upset when people do that.
    Indeed, before anyone makes that unfair inference, note that Oliver was all for the election re-do in the Ukraine, even though his commenters were not enthused. However, George Soros was in favor of the Ukrainian election re-do, which is purely coincidental. Don’t draw that unfair inference, either.

  7. EverKarl Avatar
    EverKarl

    tex,
    Why don’t you ask them? It’s not like they are difficult to reach.
    By the way, do have anything positive to say about the Iraq election?

  8. tex Avatar
    tex

    OK, I sent this to om_blog2003@yahoo.com

    Omar,

    I was looking over the website of your political party and the disbursements you show. Over $11,000 dollars are shown as wire transfers to Ali. What were those for? Is Ali disclosing how that money was spent?

    Also, I noticed that you posted a commercial about the Iraqi election that you found on MEMRI. Have you seen that commercial yourself on Al Hurra? Have you made any commercials for your political party or your candidacy? Do you have any pictures of your own campaign posters?

    I noticed that you posted a series of pictures of campaign posters on walls and buildings that you took while driving around Baghdad. Which of those were yours?

    Also, Friends of Democracy says that you (all the Fadhils, I assume?) are hiring people to report the election results all over Iraq. Apparently they have rasied several hundred thousand dollars for this effort. Are those people hired yet? I looked at the Arabic blogs on the Friends of Democracy site and there don’t appear to be any yet. When will these people get their blogs going?

    Thanks in advance for your time.

    tex at UnFairWitness and AntiWar.com

    http://ancapistan.typepad.com/

    http://www.antiwar.com/blog/

    We’ll see what he says.

  9. EverKarl Avatar
    EverKarl

    Good; that seems more likely to get an answer than attacking them here.
    By the way, do you have anything positive to say about the Iraq election? From your address, I would guess that you are anti-war, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you are against elections, so I’m curious.

  10. tex Avatar
    tex

    .. do you have anything positive to say about the Iraq election?
    No, I’m not a statist.

  11. EverKarl Avatar
    EverKarl

    And more honest than most. As ana anarchist, I can’t imagine that you actually have an interest in the answer to your question, however.

  12. janice Avatar
    janice

    Tex,
    Iraqi reporters have their articles at:
    http://fodhome.friendsofdemocracy.net
    /reality

  13. janice Avatar
    janice

    sorry the Iraqi reports page is:
    http://fodhome.friendsofdemocracy.net/
    -j

  14. tex Avatar
    tex

    Sorry, my question isn’t very clear. I was asking about this:
    We are seeking funding for Friends of Democracy to hire and equip the election news correspondents to cover the Iraqi elections on January 30th.
    I want to know if those people are hired, how many there are, where they are located (in general, not their addresses or anything) and where their blogs are.

  15. EverKarl Avatar
    EverKarl

    I doubt you’ll get an answer from Mohammed or Ali on that point, as Friends of Democracy is, afaik, a separate organization.

  16. tex Avatar
    tex

    Separate from what? It’s their NGO. They created it.

  17. Eric Deamer Avatar
    Eric Deamer

    Beautiful spot. Almost brought tears to my eyes just reading the description. I can imagine the sort of vileness that Willis and Franky and the others would view that sort of sentiment with so I didn’t even read their comments.

  18. gandhi Avatar
    gandhi

    I have posted a lengthy expose of the Fadhil brothers’ Iraq The Model and Free Iraqi blogs here on my own blog.
    This includes further discussion of their suspiscious financial links to Spirit Of America and Cyber Century Forum.
    As far as getting email responses to embarrassing from any of the Fadhil brothers – it sure hasn’t worked for me!
    Oh, but that’s right, I forgot: I am a troll, aren’t I?

  19. gandhi Avatar
    gandhi

    Tex,
    Further to your questions, do you have any idea which ticket the Fadhils are running on?
    I would have guessed Allawi’s, but Ali seems to be putting him down… Most independent candidates are pulling out (a) for their safety and (b) coz they haven’t got a chance in this rigged horse-trading election.
    The Fadhil’s Pro-Democracy Party blog is also pretty light on info…

  20. J. Peden Avatar
    J. Peden

    Tex, I think we can assume the usual standards of any “reporting”.

  21. J. Peden Avatar
    J. Peden

    But might be surprised.

  22. Patricia Avatar
    Patricia

    You can see other ads if you do a search at MEMRI for Iraq Elections.
    http://www.memritv.org/Search.asp

  23. EverKarl Avatar
    EverKarl

    gandhi,
    Yes, you are a troll, but I’ll answer your question. Chrenkoff has the 411 on Iraqi political parties. Because why would the MSM do it?

  24. tex Avatar
    tex

    Chrenkoff’s list is useless. For example, The Iraqi Islamic Party withdrew from the election and Chrenkoff still has them on his list.
    Also, it was reported on January 13: According to the Al Furat newspaper, 53 political parties and organizations as well as 30 individuals have asked their names to be dropped from the election lists in a bid to show their rejection of elections under US occupation.

  25. EverKarl Avatar
    EverKarl

    tex,
    I hate to quote a disreputable right-wing rag like the New York Times, but here goes:
    “The Iraqi Islamic Party’s announcement of withdrawal in late December was considered a big blow to the elections because the party is popular among Sunni Arabs. But the party never removed its slate of candidates from the ballot. [Party leader] Abdul-Hameed said that if the slate won national assembly seats, he would not bar his candidates from taking them, as long as the candidates were not official party members.”
    Nice try, though.

  26. furious_a Avatar
    furious_a

    Oliver Willis…
    …like tarbaby to Stupid.
    –furious

  27. terrye Avatar
    terrye

    I hope the election helps the Iraqi people build a future and a government of their own. It would be nice if the Democratic party of which I have been a member most of my adult life were not openly rooting for disaster but apparently nothing is more important than messing up Bush. Certainly not the Iraqi people.
    I also think that it would have been nice if the attacks on Rice would not have been launched days before this election. In fact I have left the party because I have this creepy feeling that the insurgents in Iraq are thinking that the Dems are their best hope of winning in the long run. They kill people, Dems exploit the deaths, support for th war goes down, we back off helping the Iraqis, the insurgents win. It is Treason 101.