Middle East Surprises

Hoagland pens a gem:

"But it is a Middle East in which those who believe in democracy and civil society are finally actors, even though we still face big obstacles," says Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Egypt's battle-scarred democratic activist.

Ibrahim originally opposed the invasion of Iraq. But it "has unfrozen the Middle East, just as Napoleon's 1798 expedition did. Elections in Iraq force the theocrats and autocrats to put democracy on the agenda, even if only to fight against us. Look, neither Napoleon nor President Bush could impregnate the region with political change. But they were able to be the midwives," Ibrahim told me in Washington.

This brings a flicker of hope... better than thinking about that last Dallas game, and the implications for salvaging this season had the Eagles won it (as the Cowboys, Skins, and Giants continue to lose)... or the election rat-f$#%ing I endured... or the myriad "bad diagnoses" I have meted out to some pretty young people lately.

On the bright side, we had a general reunion of St. Dorothy's grade school, and I attended with Mark and Carolyn. Pictures here.