Hezbollah rises, liberal media breathes sigh of relief

While the liberal media may have been a bit staggered by the recent pro-democracy developments in the Middle East, this story from USA Today shows that they've managed to regain their legs after some water and a quick breather in the corner.

The headline says it all: Many Lebanese See Syria As A Friend, Not Occupier

Lest you think me too cynical, take a look at this Rich Lowry piece before you dismiss the notion that liberals are rooting for Middle East democracy to fail. Here's a snippet from the Jon Stewart Show that Lowry references:

On his show the other night, comedian Jon Stewart — half-jokingly — expressed a feeling of dread at the changes in the Middle East and the credit President Bush will get for them. “Oh my God!” he said. “He’s gonna be a great — pretty soon, Republicans are gonna be like, ‘Reagan was nothing compared to this guy.’ Like, my kid’s gonna go to a high school named after him, I just know it.” Stewart is badly in need of the consolation of a yet-to-be-written pop theological tract, “When Good Things Happen to Bad Presidents.”

The Democratic foreign-policy expert who was Stewart’s guest that night, Nancy Soderberg, tried to comfort him, pointing out that the budding democratic revolution in the Middle East still might fail: “There’s always hope that this might not work.” There is historical precedent for that, of course. Liberal revolutions failed in Europe in 1848 and Eastern Europe in 1968. What is an entirely new phenomenon is liberals calling such reverses for human freedom — half-jokingly or not — occasions for “hope.”