Demagogue

Yesterday, Rumsfeld was asked about remarks made by Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi acknowledging that some parts of Iraq will be too unsafe to allow people to vote in the upcoming election.

His response was a bit nonsensical.

Q. Mr. Secretary, yesterday Prime Minister Allawi said it's clear that Iraqi and coalition forces are not going to be able to protect all of the polling centers throughout Iraq. He said voting is going to be extremely difficult in some places. Some Sunni groups have said they're not going to take part. What metric will you use to judge whether the election in Iraq is a success and valid?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Okay.

First, just having elections in Iraq is an enormous success and a victory.

The U.N. has done a very good job, and their representative there has been pressing forward, as has the Iraqi interim government.

People from all of the various diverse groups are represented on the 200-plus lists that exist, so whatever government evolves will be a broadly representative government.

You see, because there are more than 200 groups running in the election, the resulting government is obviously going to be "broadly representative."

And even if certain areas don't get to participate or a large portion of the population boycotts the election, the end result will still be a "broadly representative government" because they would have had so many groups to choose from - had they actually been able to vote.