AP Photo

While political junkies have been transfixed by the election results out of Massachusetts, the world remains transfixed on Haiti, battered by an earthquake that's estimated to have killed about 200,000 people out of a population of 10 million.

The international community has mobilized aggressively to respond, with vast sums for relief already raised through private charity ($10 million from the Red Cross alone) and with governments and international organizations sending hundreds of millions more. Initially, logistical bottlenecks made it difficult to actually distribute assistance, deepening the crisis, but the deployment of thousands of foreign troops (mostly American) is beginning to alleviate that problem, albeit too late for many Haitians. But as the world contemplates the...