Compare and contrast

Further to Gimme an A, here are some words from George W. Bush:

A marvellous thing is happening in Afghanistan... Freedom is powerful. Think about a society in which young girls couldn't go to school and their mothers were whipped in the public square and today they're holding a presidential election.

A few days ago Jonathan Steele had a piece in the Guardian with this title:

Right now an election is the last thing Afghanistan needs

There was a time I'd have expected better from a left-wing Guardian journalist than from a right-wing US President. Andrew Sullivan:

[D]emocracy is to the theocrats and terrorists what light is to darkness. And it's worth repeating again and again: without the United States, Afghans would still be laboring under an unspeakable terrorist-controlled tyranny. Whatever happens in America's own election, no one can ever take this legacy away from this president.

Amen to that.