Democratic cover...

Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan: Afghan women wait at a polling station to cast their ballot in parliamentary elections [Mustafa Quraishi/AP]

IOZ had a few good lines on what we use democracy for:

Here is one of the Cohens–I can never keep them straight–making one of the requisite, occasional pitches for democracy that are required of major American opinion columnists. Suffice to say that the persistent confusion of an organizational structure with a moral category is the problem here. It gives rise to all sorts of additional weirdness.

For instance, because democracy is a categorical moral good, a country like Russia, when its government acts in some manner that some or other Times-sinecured domehead thinks is morally dubious, becomes less democratic. (Alternately, a country like China, when it, whatever, lets someone look at porno on the internet, or loosens travel restrictions, or embraces the stock market, becomes more democratic.)

These estimations have very little to do with the procedural features of any country’s government. I mean, is Russia really less democratic than the United States? I don’t know. Is the United States less corrupt than Afghanistan? By what measure?

Yup!

… then this at the close:

And speaking of gangland hits, there’s this gem:

The lingering wars waged partly in democracy’s name in Iraq and Afghanistan hurt its reputation, however moving images of inky-fingered voters gripped by the revolutionary notion that they could decide who governs them. Given the bloody mayhem, it was easy to portray “democracy” as a fig leaf for the West’s bellicose designs and casual hypocrisies.

Yo, democracy is “a fig leaf for the West’s bellicose designs and casual hypocrisies.”

And, as one wag around the netteries said in the midst of Mosquerias a Go Go (or, no go) and Quran burning:

Surely everyone knows by now, the legally approved method of disposal of a used Quran is Hellfire Missile, launched from Nevada?

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