That’s the title of Victor Davis Hanson’s post up at Pajamas media today.
After this weekend, that’s pretty much what it all feels like. From Benny Avni of the NYPost.
Is Mubarak a dictator? No, according to Vice President Joe Biden. Yes, according to all other administration officials.
Must he quit? Yes, as soon as “yesterday,” according to press secretary Robert Gibbs. He should think about his “legacy,” says Obama.
But he should remain in office to maintain stability, according to Obama’s special envoy, Frank Wisner. Then again, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicates that we might be fine if he stays in office but allows Vice President Omar Suleiman to run things.
Until when? Last week, unnamed “senior officials” said elections must take place in three months. Now, Clinton says the long-planned September date might do just fine.
The White House would rather stick to their own decisions in this crisis, which so far look like attempts to climb onto whatever bandwagon still has wheels at any given moment.
(I wish there was a bus analogy in there, but no, not yet)
Here’s VDH
n turn, the president seems to voice the last advice he was given, and so we are to assume two things: one, his make “no mistake about it” declaration will change and soon be rendered obsolete as conditions on the ground in Egypt change; two, he will artfully inject himself into the breaking news by the overuse of the now accustomed “I, my, mine” as he is self-constructed to be the catalyst for all that is becoming good and a long harsh critic of all that is turning bad. In other words, Obama will talk far too much and seek to turn someone else’s revolution into a showcase of his own rhetoric. And in adolescent fashion, Obama will reveal private conversations he has had with Egyptian leaders, both breaking confidentiality and portraying his interlocutors as either agreeing with his own advice or nodding to his dictates and directives.
Obama has shared so much of himself these last 2 years that we all are capable of reading his inner workings. It isn’t pretty. Benny Avni is giving him credit for probably working behind the scenes. I pretty much doubt that.
I’m sticking with my prediction from January 31st.
Anyway – I’m getting the feeling that Mubarek will ride this out but not run in September when elections are scheduled.
If I were state, I would work with that. Give the Egyptians credit for wanting sanity in their uprising. Push Mubarek to quit torturing people in prison and to start creating the steps to the coming election so that there is a clear path to independence there.
