Not sure about folks elsewhere in the country, but here in Michigan we’re being bombarded with Kerry and Bush television ads. Odd, because they keep calling this a “swing” state when it’s clearly going to go for Kerry barring some very dramatic event.
Anyway, for the most part the ads are boring recaps of the campaigns’ respective major themes. The one surprise is a Kerry ad in which the Senator attacks the Bush administration’s close links to Saudi Arabia. Frankly I’d have gone after that a lot more than Kerry has — Bush has done the right thing in Iraq, but how can Bush expect us to take seriously his claim that the U.S. has abandoned its policy of tolerating dictatorial client states when it is still so openly supportive of Saudi Arabia?
The Associated Press yesterday ran a story illustrating just how backward Saudi Arabia is. A trial of 13 individuals was closed from public view. The charges against the 13 vary, but several are on trial for signing a letter to the Saudi royal family criticizing the pace of reforms and calling for more democracy in Saudi Arabia.
When Iran allows itself to be a puppet of radical Islamist ideologies, it’s part of the “axis of evil.” When Saudi Arabia does the same thing, you’d have to search long and hard to find that the adminstration even cares.
Toppling the dictatorship in Iraq was a good first start, but it is the Saudi Arabian example, not that of Iraq, which legitimized and continues to legitimize radical, illiberal Islam.
Source:
Saudi Democratic Advocates’ Trial Closed. Donna Abu-Nasr, Associated Press, October 4, 2004.