Interesting news story on this morning's commute regarding the Turkish parliament preparing to cast ballots for their next President today. As you may recall, there was a bit of a hub-bub months ago when they were going to do this because they were about to select an Islamist candidate, whose party had won the majority of seats in the legislature. Secularists across the nation staged protests and the military also warned about the slippery slope of Turkey becoming a theocracy such as their neighbor Iran. In response, a new general election was held and the Islamists won even more seats in the parliament. This time the military has stayed quiet and it looks like they will have a highly religious president for the first time in decades.

But what struck me about the story was the depiction of the secularists, those liberals who are in the minority in Turkey who fear that democracy would be compromised by the new government. I don't know why they need to worry so much. The U.S. is the world's strongest democracy and we have no problems with political parties that are beholden to radical clerics and whose major candidates must all swear at least lip service to their devotion, if not actually practice such in their decisions as to the course of our state.

On second thought, maybe they've got a point.