Best-Selling Global Fictions

But South African President Thabo Mbeki mumbles otherwise. He once argued that interference from abroad would abort a democratic process that would inevitably deliver freedom to Zimbabwe. But now Mugabe has taken democracy hostage, and Mbeki still refuses even to criticize him, much less provide Zimbabweans the help that South Africa's black majority received in the time of its oppression.

· China's leaders took an uncalculated gamble when they sought to host the 2008 Olympics and bring the world onto the Chinese stage. They clearly did not expect Tibetan monks to swing the spotlight from the ceremonial and nationalistic folderol of the Games to their cause. But these protests force the world to become aware again of the long, brutal occupation of Tibet. The other awful-to-contemplate reality that is still buried is the corrupt nature of the host-nation selection process overseen by the International Olympic Committee.

· Imagine: It took self-described ill-chosen words about voter bitterness (that the Obama campaign never expected to see made public) to raise the issue of elitism in our politics. The fact that the candidate was speaking in very "entre nous" invitation-only, off-the-record surroundings to cash-flush donors in a San Francisco mansion wasn't enough to tip us to that possibility -- because all candidates do exactly the same thing.

An election system built on private donations to buy enormous blocks of television time long ago became elitist. The innovation this election offers is that if Hillary Clinton fails, for the first time in 20 years someone who did not go to Yale will be elected president. At last, Harvard Law again has a fighting chance. Elitist? Who, us?

jimhoagland@washpost.com