SIGNS OF PROGRESS: Brendan Loy asks:

Which is a bigger surprise: the anti-Syrian candidates’ victory in the Lebanese election, or the New York Times’s statement (in the third paragraph of the day’s top story, no less) that the result is “perhaps an example of a greater yearning for democracy in the Arab world”?

I’m going with number two. Story here. Excerpt:

Opponents of Syrian domination claimed a stunning majority victory in the final round of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections on Sunday night in a rebellion touched off by the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri four months ago.

An anti-Syrian alliance that tried to bridge religious lines and was led by Mr. Hariri’s son, 35-year-old Saad Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, won at least 21 of 28 contested seats in northern Lebanon, the last polling area in the elections that have been staggered over the past four weekends. That gave the alliance a majority in the next 128-seat Parliament.

It was a startling change in the way politics have usually been carried out here – along strict clan and religious lines and long under the control of Syria – and perhaps an example of a greater yearning for democracy in the Arab world.

Heh. Indeed.