The NY Times today had this story about Egypt's "elections" as one of their front page features:

Egyptians voted Wednesday in the nation's first multicandidate race for president, and while Egypt has clearly not yet shaken off decades of one-man, one-party rule, the streets were calm, protesters were allowed to block city traffic and voters could cast a ballot for someone other than Hosni Mubarak.

This election was far from free and fair, based on visits to polling stations around the city. But it was a step forward, no matter how small, for a country that has operated under a state of emergency for decades, that has never allowed opposition candidates to appear on a presidential ballot and that routinely sanctioned violence as a tool on Election Day, political analysts and government critics said.

I read this and just shook my head. Democrats cried bloody murder over a few hanging chads in Florida, and the mere possibility of something maybe being awry in Ohio... but at least Egypt took a few small steps in the right direction? I'm not saying that the Times completely overlooked obvious election fraud... they did cover it. But the attitude here is quite different from that of the United States elections. Reading this article next to a Times article about the 2004 or the 2000 elections, and you'd be under the impression that Egypt's elections were better than ours. I wouldn't be surprised if the editorial staff there actually thought that.