Thumpin' - part II

Well. It looks like common sense overtaking an electorate is not a phenomenon limited to the western hemisphere. In Iran, President Mahmood Ahmidenijad has been handed a thumpin' something along the lines of the one President Bush received last month.

You gotta give the Iranians their due, by golly. They only put up with Ahmidenijad's nonsense for one year. It took us six years to give Bush the swift kick he should have received from Texas voters in 1994.

All over the country moderate conservative candidates received the majority of the vote, delivering a stinging rebuke to Ahmidenijad and his blustering anti-Israel, nationalist rhetoric.

From the historically significant city of Shiraz in the south, to the breathtaking Bandar e' Abbas on the coast, to the provincial capital of Rasht in northern Iran, not one pro-Ahmadinejad candidate won a seat on any city council. Anti-Ahmidenijad candidates for seats on the Assembly of Experts, a panel of clerics that oversees the president, also did very well. Former president Rafsanjani, who lost to Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election runoff won a seat on that august body. Mr. Rafsanjani won almost twice as many votes as his hard-liner opponent.

Like I said, a thumpin' was administered.

The Mullahs let the inflammatory little weasel Ahmidenijad become president for one reason and one reason only. To stick a thumb in the eye of George aWol Bush for that "Axis of Evil" crack.

Now the Iranians see Bush as vulnerable, and the Mullahs are comfortable letting the more moderate candidates being their lightning rod back in line. Make no mistake, if the Mullahs objected, those moderate candidates would not have been on the ballot. That they were is telling, in and of itself.

You can bet that the Bush team will try to spin this as a victory for him - Ahmidenijad was rebuked because "the Iranians know aWol means business" and they don't want to face his fury.

Bullshit.

Just the opposite. This was a thumpin' for Bush almost as much as it was for his equally odious Iranian counterpart.