Surely you realize that you pose a false dichotomy. Bad popular decisions vs. good unpopular ones? Please. If you'll recall, one of the main reasons democracy came into being is that the decisions of monarchs were so often so dreadful. And of course they tended to represent the understandings and interests of a very narrow privileged group of people.

And the fact that, early on the majority of people supported the war scarcely meant that democracy was alive and well in the US. It did mean that Bush and countless people like David Brooks had managed to garner popular support based on false pretenses. That of course can happen, even in a democracy, and it does add a measure of legitimacy to whatever the undertaking is. Of course we'd all prefer that our elected officials tell the truth and only get popular support in legitimate ways, but we know that won't always happen.

My point was that one of the main purposes of democracy is to give people a say, and thus a stake, in government. If you do that, for better or worse, "the people" back the actions of government. That gives a certain imprimatur to what government does. As things stand now in this country, the government would be hard pressed to claim that, as countless polls show. David Brooks and his ilk in the MSM frankly promote the status quo in which the government feels free to ignore the will of the people, secure in the knowledge that, come election time, there won't be much of a choice on the war in Iraq.

I'll be glad to.

(1) For a long time now, popular culture has depicted men as stupid, crude, sexually obsessed, violent, etc. Look at advertising, television, movies, short fiction and other genres and you pretty routinely see men portrayed as stupid and incompetent. I'd go so far as to say that, when in direct comparison to women, they always are shown as the dumb one and she the smart, although "always" is bound to be a stretch. As a few examples, why are men depicted as "cavemen" in the Geico commercial series but not women? How about the careerbuilder.com commercials that depict men but not women as animals, usually chimpanzees? This is hardly the only misandric aspect of pop culture, but you get the point.

(2) As far as I can see, every issue that impacts women impacts men as well and often in the same ways. Therefore, although Broadsheet is "for women," it's hard to make the distinction between what is a women's issue and what is a man's. Abortion? Of course it impacts women in ways it doesn't men, but don't men have a stake in it as well? If a man impregnates a woman, it's entirely possible that he will want her to have the choice to terminate the pregnancy, and likely for reasons similar to hers - i.e. he's not ready to take up that responsibility. Work life vs. home life? Men and women should be equally interested in equality of earnings, freedom to choose between paid and unpaid work, chldcare, etc. because if one does more paid work the other tends to do more housework and vice versa. Why should the man (or the woman) bear the brunt of wage-earning (or childcare)? So men and women aren't opposed forces floating around in the ether; we're in this together and what affects one affects the other.

Not only that, but feminism once claimed to hold gender equality as a core belief and Broadsheet represents itself to have a feminist perspective. Therefore, in the interests of promoting gender equality, it should oppose misandric as well as misogynist aspects of our society and culture. To do otherwise would be hypocritical. Of course Broadsheet is precisely that most of the time, which is why I point it out.

Well, yes, bad popular decisions and good unpopular ones are both possibilities. We'd all prefer good decisions however they're arrived at. But we all also know that governments don't make all good or all bad decisions (OK maybe the Bush Admin is an exception), so the process is important. And a process that includes "the people" is better than one that excludes us because we see that we have a stake in what gets done. Regardless of whether the decision is good or bad, we made it, and of course we can unmake it, or make another one. That's a better process than "King George has ruled and we're all stuck with the ruling."