What Fyodor is to ellipses, Rich Galen is to the asterisk...

...but that's cool, because he nails the truth about the Iraqi referendum squarely on the head.


* There appears to have been good news this weekend when the men and women of Iraq went to the polls to vote in a referendum on approving the new Constitution.

* The good news isn't that the Constitution will be approved. That has been a more-or-less foregone conclusion for a while. The real news is that the Sunnis came out big numbers in their provinces in an attempt to defeat it.

Dear Mr. Galen You think Sunnis voting to defeat the Constitution is good news? What would, by you, be bad news? Signed, The New York Times Committee for the Defense of Judith Miller

* Well, see, in the elections last January the Sunnis boycotted the process hoping that world opinion would conclude that without their participation the elections would be illegitimate.

* In the event, about 60% of the total population went to the polls, which was - to put it mildly - a pleasant surprise. The Sunnis, for the price of it, got 17 seats in the Parliament rather than the 50-or-so which their 20% of the population would have indicated.

* This time they urged their people to go to the polls and vote "No." Just like we do.

* I guarantee you that the last time a bond issue in your town -- whatever town you are in and whatever the bond issue was for -- was on the ballot there was some group urging people to go to the polls to defeat it.

* In California, urging voters to turn out to defeat some ballot issue or another has become a multi-million dollar business.

* So, the Sunnis, who have controlled Iraq for lo these many years, have decided to use the ballot box to make their point. Just like George W. Bush told us would happen.

* In the next round -- mid-December -- when members of the Parliament will be elected, you just watch the vigor with which Sunni political parties get their supporters revved up to vote.

* Part of the agreement which led some Sunni leaders to support the process, was a promise that the new parliament will be able to submit amendments to this constitution.

* Just like, where? The United States! Of America!

* As those of you who have stayed awake in class know, I wrote about the tortured history of the US Constitution in a MULLINGS this past August when I pointed out that the first try - the Articles of Confederation - were so flawed that they were thrown out and replaced with a constitution which was finally ratified in 1788 - twelve years after the Declaration of Independence.

* Even at that, it wasn't a perfect document. It had to be amended. Immediately. Not once, but TEN TIMES which, because we get to write the history, we pronounced, and now proudly point to, as the Bill of Rights.

* If the first TEN Amendments to the Constitution were so vital, why weren't they in the ... Constitution?

* Have I made my point, here?
(Thanks to CNSNews.com for the heads up.)