Q: Why does President Bush like to talk about “spreading democracy”?

A: Because “bending democracy over my desk” tested poorly in the focus groups.

So it turns out, to absolutely no-one's surprise, that when Dubya talks about promoting democracy, all he really means is promoting elections:

The advocacy group Human Rights Watch on Thursday said that the Bush administration was giving lip service to the promotion of democracy around the world by endorsing suspect elections while allowing human rights violations in those countries to go unchecked.

In a scathing report, the organization blamed the United States and Europe for undermining human rights by allowing autocrats to pretend they are democratic. The report cited Bahrain, Jordan, Nigeria, Russia and Thailand as acting "as if simply holding a vote is enough to prove a nation democratic, and Washington, Brussels and European capitals played along."

(...)

In an interview, [HRW executive director Kenneth] Roth attributed much of this posturing by foreign governments to the Bush administration's promotion of democracy while still accepting the results of dubious elections. Mr. Roth said that the Bush administration had chosen the trappings of democracy instead of human rights.

"They've abandoned democratic standards and reduced its requirements to just holding an election," he added.

(...)

"It's now too easy for autocrats to get away with mounting a sham democracy," Mr. Roth said. "That's because too many Western governments insist on elections and leave it at that. They don't press governments on the key human rights issues that make democracy function — a free press, peaceful assembly and a functioning civil society that can really challenge power."

Bush and the GOP are pro-democracy in the same way that they're pro-life: They focus solely on surface metrics like elections and births, but categorically reject the core principles that give democracy and life meaning. Principles like the importance of diverse and independent media, egalitarian elections, rule of law, compassion for the poor and sick and wounded. Not to mention the principle of not spying, imprisoning, raping, torturing, or killing indiscriminately. They have no use for any of it.

They are dripping totalitarian poison into America's veins, and it has to stop before we become the country our parents warned us about.

(h/t dakine and The All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin)