What's democracy?

Rice defines governing democratically in an interview with Latin American journalists:

This is the question of what does it mean to govern democratically after having been elected democratically, and to me and I think most people would agree it means that the opposition has an opportunity to organize, the opposition has an opportunity to be on television, to be on the radio, to be in the newspapers with their platform; it means they have the ability to associate freely; it means that no one intimidates the opposition, tries to threaten the opposition in some way; it means that there are civil society groups that can freely associate and can freely take their cases to the people; it means that there are independent trade unions, for instance, that can protect the rights of workers. The government can say everything that it wants to about protecting the rights of workers, but trade unions are also an important part of protecting the rights of workers.

And so I don't believe that there are different kinds of democracy. I've heard this argument. Now, it may be that I'm suspicious of this because I was a Soviet specialist and the word ''democracy'' was used cynically. The German Democratic Republic. Who ever thought that East Germany was democratic? It was not. And so when people talk about different kinds of democracy, I say let's go back to the basics of democracy. That means people can say what they think, people can educate their children freely, boys and girls; it means that they can worship as they please; it means that they can be free from the arbitrary knock of the secret police at night because the justice system is independent; and it means that they can organize themselves politically to oppose the existing government.

What do I like about this answer? It's not taking an obvious swipe at any particular regime. Too often US officials are asked questions and they use the chance to go after their enemy of the moment. Throughout her entire interview, Secretary Rice carefully walks around attacking US opponents, only giving two small statements of criticism against Cuba, and instead gives a positive agenda for the hemisphere and a more universal agenda for democracy.

I know, I know. Watch the deeds not the words. But these words are on message and keeping our agenda on track, which is important.