A reader at Eugene Volokh's site asks a good question. For all those people who think that Saddam is rational and cunning, and can be dealt with on that basis, explain the stupidity of the 100% vote.

As Eugene points out, an 85-15 vote (or one similar to Bush's current approval ratings) would look more realistic (though still hard to credit) and would have given him a propaganda advantage, because the the idiotarians in the press would have surely treated it as credible. What he actually did was meaningless from the standpoint of someone in the West, and is indeed a symptom of megalomania.

If the 100% vote was "meaningless from the standpoint of someone in the West," then how do you explain the press, such as Reuters, reporting these voting results as though they are meaningful and credible? They way they tell the story, you'd think the vote happened in a truly democratic country!

I don't consider Reuters to be from the West...

LOL!

Apparently, this week's New Republic has the answer: Reuters and others in Baghdad are pretty much in the Iraqi Information Ministry building. So much for unbiased access to information (and a few threats, for good measure).

Even if they ARE in the same building, you'd think they'd at least have some remaining "objectivity." I was going to say "common sense," but I stopped expecting that from the press a long time ago. At least "objectivity" is a standard that they still claim to value.

Either Reuters staff in Baghdad has totally abandoned skepticism, or they've been brainwashed. And, hey, some EDITOR had to allow this story through. Scary, because theirs was the sort of story you'd expect to see in the IRAQI press, the controlled, sham "journal" of an oppressed nation, not in the long Western tradition of the "free press."

What's UP with these guys?

Oh, wait, the "threats." You really think they've been threatened with mortal peril? Since when has that stopped a true-blue journalist from publishing what's "right?" You'd think they'd at least leave and file their story from the safety of the Saudi Arabia office, or not publish at all...

What's up with them? Two things. One, they have become "world citizens", with all the moral relativism that implies. And they have also come out on the wrong end of the access/objectivity ratio, which is an eternal pitfall of journalists.