voters dancing in the streets after this week's election. Whether President Bush's decision to liberate of Iraq ultimately will result in a stable, peaceful democracy in the long run remains to be seen, but it would be difficult for even the most hardened skeptic not to be moved by video of joyful Iraqis dancing in the streets following that country's first democratic election earlier this week.

Exceeding even the most optimistic projections of most observers in this country, and defying the threats of terrorist resisters in their own land, somewhere between 60 to 70 percent of Iraq's eligible voters participated in the first free election in Iraq in more than a half century.

That kind of turnout puts the American electorate to shame. We have grown fat and lazy at the table of freedom while Iraqi citizens clamor for even a crumb of this basic human nutrient.

The United States is not out of the woods yet in this volatile experiment in Iraq. But at least for the moment, we can see that the seedling tree of democracy has indeed taken root there. And it is beautiful, indeed. -DR