Stephen Colbert had an amusing interview with George Stephanopolus this week. One of his statements was that he was glad the US doesnt have a system where the voters pick the president. Presumably he was referring to the supreme court in 2000 and the electoral college in 2004 but it was an interesting comment, albeit tongue-in-cheek.

To support his nation-building campaign, President Bush has talked on and on about the virtues of democracy but what do we do when people elect leaders that we dont like? Is it fair for the US to tell other countries that they can have an election but only if they vote for the people we like?

Across the globe from Mexico to Palestine, people are increasingly unhappy with the status quo and voting to change governments that have been in power for decades. The US has helped create many of these reviled governments and championed them in the name of economic globalization. Unfortunately, millions of people no longer believe that globalization is floating all boats and they are showing their displeasure in the voting booth.

This week Hamas not only won a few seats in the Palestinian Authority (they dont really have a country as we know it), they swept the elections. Voters there are sick of the status quo and who can blame them?

We see Hamas as a "terrorist" group but we only see a slice of any organization on Television. Voters on the ground also see the schools and the relief efforts and they see the most important thing: change. Many people are tired of the corruption and lack of economic progress, and at this point, many may feel that any change is better than more of the same.

As I have written before, if people have nothing to gain from the status quo and nothing left to lose but their life, they will react with violence. This may be hard for people like us, with so much freedom and wealth, to picture, but it is only common sense. (And we see it in our own ghettos.) By creating such a desperate situation for the Palestinians year after year, the US and Israel have created a mess for themselves.

The lesson from Israel is not the one Bush regularly mentions vis-a- vis Iraq, that to "win" the war, you have to be meaner and more ruthless than the enemy. The lesson in Israel is that you cannot "win" the cycle of violence, you have to break the cycle of violence.

What is the right thing for the US to do now? What will the Bush Administration actually do (Im confident those two answers wont be the same)? What will this growing movement of Anti-American democracies mean for Iraq, us and the rest of the world?

Stay tuned.