Do you consider all Americans of Italian descent to be affiliated with the mob, simply because they share the same heritage as the members of La Cosa Nostra? Thankfully, most people don't. However, ABC News anchor Peter Jennings apparently wouldn't have a problem making such a claim, judging by the way he seems to view Sunni Muslims in Iraq.

Recently Jennings implied, during an interview with Secretary of State Rice, that the Iraqi elections of January 30th were 'illegitimate' because some Sunnis failed to participate in the voting process, and are now complaining that the U.S. occupation of their country was the cause.

So what has that got to do with the American mob, you may be asking?

Well, it's quite simple really. You see, Saddam Hussein and the vast majority of his followers are Sunnis, and they once ran Iraq much like a mafia crime family. Most Sunnis, however, are not Saddam loyalists, just like most Italians are not mobsters, and it's a pretty safe bet that the Sunnis who are doing all the yawping about the elections, are the very same people involved in a lot of the terrorist acts which have taken place in that country.

People like Jennings would like for you to think of these parasites merely as Sunnis, but the fact that most of them are members of that particular Muslim sect, is basically irrelevant. It would be like referring to a mob family in this country as merely Italians, and implying that what the members of that family had to say was representative of the attitudes of all Italian people.

That, of course, would be absurd and insulting to Italians everywhere, just like suggesting that this small group of Saddamites speaks for the entire Sunni population, insults all decent Sunni Muslims. The fact is that while a smaller percentage of Sunnis voted last Sunday than did Shiites, they still had the opportunity to do so. If any of them had wanted to vote, but failed to, it wasn't because of our military's presence in Iraq. It was because they felt intimidated by others within their own community, and didn't have the guts to stand up to them.

Face it, most of the people complaining about the elections now, didn't want there to be elections to begin with, and they are counting on media personalities like Peter Jennings to convince the people of the western world that the entire Sunni population got hosed on election day.

Is it Jennings' argument that the Iraqi elections are lacking in legitimacy because the people who never wanted them to occur in the first place, are now crying disenfranchisement? And is it also his contention that the claims of the people who have supported Saddam's rule all along, are representative of the opinions of all Sunni Muslims in Iraq, simply because they themselves happen to be Sunnis?

If so, then I think it's safe to say that Mr. Jennings would likely be just as quick to characterize all Italians as mobsters, all Irish people as drunks, and all Jews as penny pinchers. Of course, intelligent people understand that those sorts of bigoted depictions are both despicable and ridiculous.

They also know that most Sunni Iraqis aren't cowardly Islamo—fascists, and that not all Canadian—born journalists are Bush—bashing nincompoops, in spite of the fact that one in particular just happens to be exactly that.

Edward L. Daley is the owner of the Daley Times—Post.  He is a frequent contributor.