Isn't that special?
In a piece hysterically titled "Meet Iran's George W. Bush," author Laura Secor said Iran's upcoming elections (this is from last Monday) were similar to ours in 2004 for reasons that every American save the REAL Bush haters -- and you know who YOU are!!! -- should find thoroughly offensive (h/t Gateway Pundit via NBer Blazer):
[Mir Hossein] Mousavi is not Iran's Barack Obama. He's more like John Kerry, and this election year is strikingly like 2004 in the United States. The incumbent president is deeply unpopular at home and abroad. He came to power with a dubious mandate, but governed in a polarizing fashion that has divided even his one-time allies. Iranians have paid the price in every area of life that is touched by the government. The election is Mousavi's to lose--but to win it, he will need to unite a divided opposition, and inspire at least a few of the beleaguered urban voters who have stopped going to the polls.
I have no idea how much Secor knows about Iran, but her knowledge of America is rather pathetic.
After all, Gallup's final favorability rating for Bush just before the 2004 elections was 51 percent, with 46 percent unfavorable. Forgive me, but by my math, that is NOT deeply unpopular.
Lest we not forget that Bush became the first sitting president since Roosevelt in 1936 to get re-elected while adding to majorities in both chambers of Congress.
What was that about "deeply unpopular," Laura?
As for people paying "the price in every area of life that is touched by the government," the economy as measured by the Gross Domestic Product had grown in twelve consecutive quarters prior to the 2004 elections, and was in the middle of what any impartial economist would call above-average growth.
Furthermore, having bottomed in August 2003, nonfarm payrolls had grown in the following fourteen months before Election Day by 2.3 million jobs in the middle of a streak of 52 consecutive monthly increases.
With this in mind, Secor should continue writing exclusively about Iran, wouldn't you agree?
