Yes, that's what I mean by "the troube with free elections is: They're free". It's an aphorism I learned watching the Sandinistas, the Contras, the Shining Path and, of course, the democratically elected Iraqi President the CIA helped Saddam Hussein replace for the great crime of wanting to nationalize the oil industry. Of course, that's only a few in a long list; you could apply it to our Cold War sponsorship of both Nasser and his heir Mubarak, too, or the military goverment we maintain in Pakistan because bin Laden would win any truly free election by a landslide. If I thought this were even LIKELY to be another case like those I'd side with the protesters in a moment.

Unfortunately, it's not. If Mubarak goes down, which seems probably, everyone agrees the Muslim Brotherhood will run the next government. They almost literally invented Islamic terrorism, so while I don't expect them to oppress their own members the way Mubarak did, I DO expect them to be at least as brutal against women who lack a burqa, men who aren't Muslim, Muslims who don't subscribe to their own special brand of violent xenophobic Islam and Westerners. In short, I don't expect the heirs of man who listed individual liberty chief among his complaints against the West to install democracy, and if 51% of the minority allowed to vote endorse state sponsored international AND DOMESTIC terror I don't call it democracy. Mubaraks likely sucessors won't empty the torture chambers, they'll fill them, and they'll precisely BECAUSE they want to disenfranchise and brutalize the vast majority of Egyptians.

Now, if all the folks paid for the right political analyses are wrong and someone like Al Zawahiri doesn't institute an Egyptian reign of terror, great; I'll be glad to see democracy flourish in Mubaraks absence. I'm not holding my breath though; Mubarak's a thug, but there's a reason so many Al Qaeda members and leaders were and are in his prisons, horrid as they are. Sometimes it's black and white, but I don't think this one of those rare occasions.