Differing scales

A discussion with someone over the Sarkozy election. This person kept repeating "Do you realize the gravity of this? Sarkozy has been elected president of France, I mean this is an outrage". I understand that the democratic election of someone like Sarkozy is very disturbing to my friend (I don't understand WHY it's disturbing, I just understand that it IS disturbing). But this same person, when discussing the war in Lebanon this summer, did not find the fact that there are Hezbollah members in the Lebanese parlament at least as worrisome if not more.

And this is what really annoys me. My friend is just an example, but all of Main Stream Europe seems to think in the same way. Sarkozy being elected is more of an outrage than Hamas being elected in January 2006 ( After Israel had unilaterally disengaged from the settlements in Gaza in 2005, but I guess no one cares about timelines in Europe). Sarkozy president is more of a menace to world stability than Ahmadinejad is with his constant menaces of wiping out a country from the globe. Sarkozy making remarks about "scum" is more scandalous than TV shows shown to Palestinian children where they are taught that Islam will conquer the world. Their gravity scales are different than mine I guess (even if Ségolène had won rather than Sarkozy, I still wouldn't have considered it a bigger blow to democracy than say, having terrorists in the election ballots in the first place...).

I don't understand this attitude. This is more than just the general "rooting for the underdog". I wish I could understand what the root of this thinking is, so that I could answer properly to people with this mindset.