The wind of freedom, blowing across the dunes

Um, not so much.

JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA - As Saudis watched the winds of free speech and democracy gust through Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt in recent months, the first elections here in 60 years ended Thursday with barely a stir.

Small numbers of Saudi men turned out to cast their ballots Thursday in the third and final elections for 179 municipal councils nationwide. Women were not allowed to participate in this cautious experiment in political reform by the world's largest oil exporter.

Apart from minority Shiites in the Eastern Province, and Islamist supporters of popular conservative clerics, the majority of the country's eligible voters showed little interest in the elections that began in February and were carried out in stages.

[...]

President Bush, who will meet with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah in his ranch in Crawford, Texas, April 25, has been pushing for Saudi Arabia to democratize since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Most of the hijackers were Saudi. The Bush administration has said that the lack of political participation has led to religious extremism in the region. [italics added]

Would that that last bit were true.

Bush’s first-term judicial confirmation rate was the highest in recent history. With even fewer Democrats in the Senate and every expectation of continued confirmation success under the current, legitimate Senate rules, why would Bush and Frist detonate the “nuclear option”?

It’s certainly not something most Republicans are clamoring for, as Senate Republican Whip Mitch McConnell has reportedly acknowledged in private. But it’s the top priority for religious right leaders like James Dobson and Pat Robertson who are demanding payback for Bush’s re-election in the form of radical judicial nominees. They are intent on overturning the legal precedents that underpin progressive governance and society.

So one day we can live just like the Saudis!

We are truly living in an Over Under Sideways Down world. "When will it end, when will it end," indeed.