It’s time to pull out the muzzle again. Iowa’s Democrat with the talking mouth, Sen. Tom Harkin, has spouted off more antagonistic political rhetoric toward the Republican Party, making him seem more like the symbol of his party and less like a long-lasting public servant.

On Thursday, Harkin called for the United States to send troops to protect Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the president of Haiti, who was being threatened by rebel forces attempting to oust him from government. Harkin said the United States should protect Aristide because he “got more support there than Bush got in this country.” He furthered the assault by remarking Aristide is a “legitimate, democratically elected president.”

There are certainly valid concerns with the election of Bush in 2000, particularly because he did not win the popular vote, but Harkin’s insult is offensive not only to Bush, but to America as a whole. Harkin’s comment is certainly a political cheap-shot, but his failure to comprehend the fundamental differences between the democracies of the United States and Haiti is appalling.

The United States is arguably the most esteemed democracy in the world. Its roots in Lockean theory set an example for other governments to establish rule by the people, where the people’s consent is what maintains the government’s legitimacy.

Despite what Harkin suggests, Aristide and Haiti lack the aforementioned legitimacy. In 2003, Transparency International, an international nongovernmental organization, ranked Haiti the third most corrupt country of the 133 countries surveyed, being beat only by Bangladesh and Nigeria. On a scale from zero to 10 — with 10 being the least corrupt — Haiti scored a mere 1.5. In contrast, the United States scored 7.5.

Haiti’s perceived corruption stems from its 2000 “democratic” elections, in which Aristide miraculously garnered 92 percent of the vote. Oddly enough, there was a higher turnout in the country’s poorest neighborhoods than in its most affluent — a sharp contrast to voting patterns in the United States.

The 2000 election was boycotted by all major opposition parties in Haiti, who outright accused Aristide of fixing the election, citing that Aristide’s political party was the only one represented on the country’s electoral council. In 2000, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan suggested the United Nations cancel its Haiti mission, due to what the New York Times called the “questionable legitimacy” of the Haitian government.

Harkin may claim he was trying to draw attention to the need for food and health care in Haiti, but his obnoxious partisan attacks bury the real problems in the mess of controversy his remarks caused. His assault on Bush is nothing more than a four-year-old jab that in the case of Haiti, lacks substance and fact.