Democracy, the Morning After

Joe Klein on the easy rhetoric and hard realities of spreading democracy in an unstable region

The people are demanding honest government," President George W. Bush said last week. "The people want services. They want to be able to raise their children in an environment in which they can get a decent education and they can find health care." The President was talking about Palestinians, not Americans, and he was on a roll. "If there is corruption, I'm not surprised that people say, Let's get rid of corruption," he added. "If government hadn't been responsive, I'm not the least bit surprised that people said, I want government to be...

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