[PornoDoggy]

I don't think it's all a scam. I think this is an important first step. I think a lot of people are overemphasizing the significance and the size of the step. All the cheering and dancing makes good television - but so does a carrier landing. Like I said, today is an important first step - but it really hasn't got any more significance than the carrier landing did in the long run.

Who voted is important, but so is who didn't vote. Where people voted is also important. I still wonder if "democracy" is going to be the panacea that the Bushites believe it will be. In one Arab country (Algeria, I think) several years ago the military overthrew the government after fair democratic elections when Islamic militants actually won the election.

The purpose of this election was to choose the folks who will write the Iraqi constitution - which will lay out the interaction between Sunni, Shiite, and Kurds. That's going to be the hard part. There are guns all over Iraq. We know this because we helped make it possible.

If the constitutional questions can't be resolved, all hell could break lose - on a scale that could make both today and the Saddam era look like a pleasant time.