Tonight at the Oscars, in addition to the usual speeches thanking mothers, fathers, friends, co-workers, hairdressers, and dog groomers. we’re probably going to hear the occasional anti-American, anti-Bush rant about Iraq.

This is fine. It is, after all, Hollywood. And Hollywood as we all know is a place of dreams; not to mention a place of self-absorbed, self-obsessed, drug-addled nincompoops with a collective I.Q. not much larger than the number of steps in an alchoholic rehabilitation program. Couple this with a child-like faith in their own intellectual and moral superiority and what will be on display tonight will be American liberalism at its finest. Or, in Hollywood jargon, kind of like Mary Poppins meets The Hunchback of Notre Dame with our Hollywood heroes flying in to do battle with the ogrish George W.

So, while the children on stage complain, sniff, grumble, and rant, the grownups have been busy really changing the world.

CAIRO, Feb. 26 – President Hosni Mubarak asked Egypt’s Parliament on Saturday to amend the Constitution to allow for direct, multiparty presidential elections this year for the first time in the nation’s history.

On the face of it, the unexpected proposal from Mr. Mubarak, a former Air Force general who has ruled Egypt unchallenged since 1981, represents a sea change in a country with a 50-year history of one-party governments.

Who woulda thunk it?

Mubarak took this action one day after American Secretary of State (and new international sex kitten, if you believe the Washington Post) Condi Rice cancelled a planned trip to Egypt in protest against the arrest of a democracy activist:

Ayman Nour, head of Al Ghad, a newly approved political party, was imprisoned on Jan. 29 on allegations of forging some 2,000 signatures to gain a license for his party last year. He denies the accusation, and government critics note that his continued detention seems to undermine the president’s commitment to greater democracy.

Everybody on the planet can see the obvious connection. Mubarak, an inveterate survivor, sees the handwriting on the wall as country after country in the region breaks for democracy.

And Cairo isn’t the only Capital where the siren song of participatory government is being sung. Lebanon, a nation that’s seen more than a quarter century of sectarian strife is now uniting behind the idea of evicting their long-time oppressors and occupiers, the Syrian army:

JERUSALEM —The U.S. led war against terrorism and its advances in Iraq and Afghanistan have enhanced the climate in the Middle East and will enable the international community to force Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon likely by May, former Lebanese Prime Minister Michel Aoun told WorldNetDaily today in an exclusive interview.

“The U.S. and EU are backing us in our movement to free Lebanon,” said Aoun, speaking to WND from France. “They are interfering through diplomacy and threats of sanctions, and the situation is such today that Syria must comply. If the U.S. and Europe follow through, Syria will be obliged to withdraw before Lebanese elections in May.”

Columnist Thomas Friedman, sometime supporter of Bush’s mid-east policy, is encouraged:

After the Hariri murder, Lebanese just snapped. Lebanon became the story of a broad majority of Lebanese Christians, Muslims and Druse no longer willing to remain silent, but instead telling the Syrians, and their Lebanese puppet president, to “go home.” Lebanon went from a country where few dared whisper “When will Syria leave?” to a country where nearly everyone was shouting it, and Syria was having to answer.

What liberals from Hollywood to Harvard Yard are going to have to start dealing with is the possibility that, once again, they’re wrong. They’ve been wrong so often over the past 2 years (hell, over the past quarter century) that, if they were studio executives, their record would have required them to be fired for gross incompetence.; kind of like Oliver Stone’s “Alexander” meets Michale Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate.”

From “Afghanistan can never have democracy” to “elections will never be held in Iraq,” liberals haven’t only been wrong, they’ve been clueless. The world wept as Afghani women, who until recently were beaten to death if they went uncovered in public, emerged from polling places having exercised their right to vote. And can anyone forget the tears of joy shed by Iraqi citizens as they raised their purple-stained fingers to the sky in triumph following their election last month?

Elections in Palestine, democracy roiling in Lebanon, Egypt now in lock-step, rumblings in Syria, the radioactive mullahs getting more and more nervous…all of this is a direct result of the policies initiated by George Bush and the United States government (Hat Tip: U.S. Military).

Looks like the makings of a real blockbuster.