The good:

The Iraqi elections went ahead, the counting is happening, and outside of a few incidents here and there, nobody was hurt or killed because they tried to enjoy the US-enforced democratic ideal. Nice to see they’re counting by hand instead of trusting in Diebold, eh? Let’s hope that there’s a genuine effort to let them lead their own country and that diplomatic relations proceed properly. Condi’s was on Face The Nation yesterday, warning that “The insurgency is not going to go away as a result of today,” which is going to justify our being there for the next decade or so, I’m sure.

The bad:

We’ve managed to lose $9 billion that had been handed off to the Coalition Provisional Authority. One ministry had 8,206 guards on the payroll while there were only 602 physical bodies to show the auditors. Of course, Paul Bremer’s saying that the findings are a load of hooey and that there’s no way that good accounting practices could have been put in place during that troubled time. I wonder if he said that over his videophone from his gold-lined hoverpool.