Egyptian Elections

Juan Cole... Oh, yeah, I guess I should say more stuff, but usually saying his name and shaking your head communicates quite a lot. First off, lest Professor Cole ever read this (fat chance) let me just say, that I'm not a Middle East expert nor do I play one on TV. I don't read the untranslated Koran. I've never been to the Middle East (although I'd love to go on a tour of Crusading sites... Krak de Chevalierss... ooh... where was I). There, now he can feel totally superiour and dismiss out of hand everything else I say without reading (just trying to help out Prof.).

He's right. Partially. The Egyption elections were rigged. However, the interesting thing isn't that they had rigged elections. The interesting thing is that they had to dance through hoops to try to give the appearance of having elections. These guys did everything they could to make it look like they were having an honest to goodness plebescite. In the past these things were incredibly silly farces with one or two candidates, both from the same party, and the miracle of 100% turnout (no sick or injured, everyone goes to the polls). That's a pretty major change. No, it's not enough, but this guy needs to give some credit where it's due. It's the first election since 1954!

Most of the stuff I've read has said right along that Mubarek was only holding this election because he was forced too, not because he was suddenly a believer in democracy. But damn it, the fact that he was forced into a decision he wouldn't have otherwise made means that things are happening there and they're good things.

Other than that, blah, blah, the US stinks, Bush is failing, everyone except Juan Cole is wrong and stupid, blah, blah, blah.