IRVINE: Some boarded buses in Modesto at midnight to get here. Others flew in from Seattle, or drove six hours in the family car.

Not Suad Aleshaiker of Irvine. All she did was persuade her doctor at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center to let her sneak out of bed about noon Saturday – three days after stomach surgery.

“I said, ‘No matter how many tubes are coming out of my body, I have to go register!’” she said from a wheelchair at the former El Toro Marine base, where she registered to vote for Iraq’s first free election in decades. “This is the biggest celebration – like the wedding of Iraq. If there’s a wedding, you have to come no matter where you are or what shape you’re in.”

No doubt that is true, I just worry.

Some perhaps could care less about freedom, and some are left over Marxists who still think that capitalism is the true oppressor. The majority, however, appear to be much more interested in politics than in freedom — which is sad, if true.

A lot of the violence is geared toward preventing the elections. I expect that things will stabilize somewhat after the elections (maybe not immediately, but soon enough). Pushing the elections back in the name of improving security is NOT a good idea. It would be giving the bad guys a victory that they cannot win on the battlefield and would only encourage more violence (if it works to postpone elections, it may work for other things).

Those guys don’t have professional training in journalism, nor are they bound by ethical constraints to report on events objectively.

It’s CBS for me.