"Voting isn't democracy"

Ryan at Cigars in the Sand has put his finger on the latest mainstream media meme: Voting isn't democracy.

To wit:

The election is badly hampered from the start by its illegitimate lineage. It was spawned after an American-led military invasion, incubated in an American-led military occupation and administration, designed by a mildly credible condominium of Iraqi and U.N. officials working—literally and figuratively—under the gun of the United States, and administered by an interim Iraqi administration that has "Made in Washington" stamped all over it. (San Francisco Chronicle)

We know that the elections in Iraq aim for democracy, but it is not held in such an atmosphere. (Al Sharq, Qatar)

We can be certain that many people will deny [the election's] legitimacy. (Patrick Clawson, Institute for Near East Policy)

In a country like this with zero respect for human rights, no colonial experience of rule of law, no Magna Carta, how are you going to build a democracy? (Unnamed "Western official," quoted in The Los Angeles Times)

The election cannot bring the Iraqis democracy because all the conditions are missing, because freedom can't prosper on the battlefields. (Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Germany)

To me, all this sounds uncannily like the "not a mandate" nonsense we heard from the MSM back in November.

Or, to put it another way: If it's good news for President Bush, then it can't possibly be good news.

To quote Ryan again, it's "like saying that the best college basketball team didn't win the NCAA championship. It may be true, but they are wearing the rings. Wanna see my purple finger?"

Hmmm … voting isn't democracy. Will someone please explain that to the lady in the photograph above?

UPDATE: Ryan emailed me this additional example of the meme, from an op-ed by Samuel Issacharoff in The Philadelphia Inquirer: "By itself, today's election in Iraq is a milestone. But it is not the key to the country's democratic legitimacy." Yep, it's definitely a virulent little bugger.