SEARCH BLOG: OBAMA and LEADERSHIP.
Recently, this post discussed President Obama's reaction to the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt's President Morsi:
Now Obama's administration is expressing concern about Morsi's power grab. But don't expect the same pressure or actions taken against Egypt's former leader Hosni Mubarak or Libya's dictator Qaddafi. There will be no U.S. fly-overs. There will be no U.S. calls for Morsi to step down. There will just be a statement about how establishing a new government in a troubled area can sometimes require "strong leadership" to protect a "fledgling democracy" ... or some such tripe.
The Wall Street Journal published this a day later.
"Mr. Obama told aides he was impressed with the Egyptian leader's pragmatic confidence," the Times reported. "He sensed an engineer's precision with surprisingly little ideology. Most important, Mr. Obama told aides that he considered Mr. Morsi a straight shooter who delivered on what he promised and did not promise what he could not deliver."
Going on in this gushing vein, the Times concluded: "As for Mr. Obama, his aides said they were willing to live with some of Mr. Morsi's more populist talk as long as he proves constructive on substance. 'The way we've been able to work with Morsi,' said one official, 'indicates we could be a partner on a broader set of issues going forward.' "
A day after this era of good feelings had begun, Mr. Morsi awarded himself dictatorial powers. The worst that White House spokesman Jay Carney would say is that the administration is "concerned."
You could call that "tripe."
While President Obama once again "leads from behind," the people of Egypt have taken action.
Tens of thousands of people have held protests in Cairo against Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi, who last week granted himself sweeping new powers.
Flag-waving demonstrators chanted slogans accusing the president and the Muslim Brotherhood of betraying last year's revolution.
On Monday Mr Mursi sought to defuse the crisis by saying the decree granting him new powers was limited in scope.
However, his opponents want him to withdraw the measure completely.
Ahead of Tuesday's rally, opposition activists clashed with police protecting the nearby US embassy. A protester, who was in his fifties, died of a heart attack after inhaling tear gas.
Activists later converged on Tahrir Square - the main focus of the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak - for one of the largest demonstrations to date against Mr Mursi.
"We don't want a dictatorship again. The Mubarak regime was a dictatorship. We had a revolution to have justice and freedom," protester Ahmed Husseini was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency."The people want to bring down the regime," marchers chanted, echoing slogans used in last year's protests. [more including video here]
You can forgive President Obama for misjudging the situation in Egypt. After all, he is viewing the world through the eyes of someone who appreciates the "precision" of people such as Morsi... and Chavez... and Ahmadinejad... and Stalin... and Mao.
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