Cops of the world

One of I. F. Stone's "shirttails" (the good stuff at the very end of a news article) is in a January 2 Christian Science Monitor piece about arranging for elections in Iraq.

So far, though, [US proconsul Paul] Bremer has been reluctant to give full control over the selection process to Iraqis, worried that it could leave too many extremists in the interim government, says one council official.

"He wants a managed election, but the Iraqi people will see right through that," says the councilor, who asked not to be named. "For this process to be worth our time, it has to be put strictly into our hands."

As Phil Ochs put it so many years ago now, "We'll ram through the streets of the cities we wreck/And we'll find you a leader that you can elect."