The Commentariat -- February 6

Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman, center back, meeting with leaders of Egyptian parties and the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo today. AP photo. 

Quote of the Day: President Mubarak needs to be treated as he deserved over the years, because he has been a good friend. -- Dick Cheney ...

"Our Son of a Bitch." Scott Shane of the New York Times on our long history of propping up repressive dictators. ...

... CW: Benedict Moran of Al Jazeera asks the same questions I've been asking for more than a week: where the hell is the United Nations Security Council? Video & print stories. ...

... David Sanger of the New York Times: "... the Obama administration is struggling to determine if a democratic revolution can succeed while President Hosni Mubarak remains in office, even if his powers are neutered and he is sidelined from negotiations over the country’s future." ...

     ... Jake Tapper has the backstory: "The Obama administration on Saturday distanced itself from comments about Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak made by a man the president had used as an envoy to Mubarak just days before. Saying he was speaking for himself, former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner said at a security conference in Munich, Germany, that 'President Mubarak remains utterly critical in the days ahead as we sort our way toward the future.'" CW: Wisner is a diplomat??? WTF? ...

... "A Neo-Sultanistic Regime." Will Englund & Samuel Sockol of the Washington Post do a fair job of explaining how President Mubarak maintained power and the dynamic that caught him off guard: "Hosni Mubarak kept Egypt under total control for nearly three decades, not through charisma or inspiration, but by building a system of patronage and brutality that was beyond challenge.... Change here has been pushed by a new generation that refuses to accept the rationalizations of its parents. When the economy began to sour two years ago, young people discovered that a system built on nepotism and bribery was shutting them out of university slots and jobs." ...

... Nichols Kristof interviewed protesters in Tahrir Square, and is optimistic about Egypt's ability to self-govern. Also, see the rationale put forward by the insufferable snob David Brooks in the post below. What a contrast! ...

... Frank Rich disputes "the default assumption that the Egyptian uprising, like every other paroxysm in the region since the Green Revolution in Iran 18 months ago, must be powered by the twin American-born phenomena of Twitter and Facebook."

Bryan Bender of the Boston Globe: "Once a key supporter of President Obama’s surge of troops in Afghanistan, [Massachusetts Sen. John] Kerry said he has concluded that the US strategy in Afghanistan has to be revised. He is calling for a more limited focus and fewer American troops.... In the coming weeks, Kerry [who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee] said he will hold a series of oversight hearings" on the progress of & prospects for the war effort.

Budget Director Jacob Lew in a New York Times op-ed, describes a few of the painful budget cuts President Obama is proposing to make in programs he supports, but he says these cuts won't be nearly enough to address the deficit in any significant way. The President urges Congress to reform the tax code.

Eric Dash of the New York Times: "... lawmakers and regulators pushed Wall Street to overhaul its pay practices. Big banks responded by shifting more compensation into stock, a move intended to align employees’ interests more closely with those of investors and discourage excessive risk-taking. But it turns out that executives have ... [used] complex investment transactions ... [to] limit the downside on their holdings, or even profit, as other shareholders are suffering. More than a quarter of oldman Sachs’s partners ... used these hedging strategies from July 2007 through November 2010.... One prominent Goldman investment banker avoided more than $7 million in losses over a four-month period. Such transactions are at the center of a debate over whether Wall Street executives should be allowed to hedge their stock holdings."

Here's a video by Russia Today on last week's protest of the billionaire Koch brothers' appropriately named Rancho Mirage retreat for rich right-wing political movers & shakers. Thanks to Gilda S. for forwarding the video.

... I hate to get my U.S. news from Russia Today, but the content of the video is accurate, as far as I know. Here's a transcript of the video's text. AND here's the New York Times story on the protest, to which I linked last week.

Ed Connolly & Michael Luo of the New York Times: "Tens of thousands of gun owners ... bought their weapons legally but under the law should no longer have them because of subsequent mental health or criminal issues.... Policing these prohibitions is difficult, however, in most states.... California is unique in the country ... because of its computerized database.... It was created, in part, to enable law enforcement officials to handle the issue pre-emptively.... The list had 18,374 names on it as of the beginning of this month — 15 to 20 are added a day — swamping law enforcement’s ability to keep up. Some police departments admitted that they had not even tried."

Right Wing News

Maureen Dowd reviews Don Rumsfeld's memoir which is to hit the bookstores this week. Dowd liked it as much as Dana Milbank did. AND here's a more serious review by Michiko Kakutani. You won't want to rush out a buy a copy.

The Family Plot. Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Ginni Thomas’ new career advising clients on how to donate money to political causes" appears to be a direct result of her husband Clarence's siding with the 5-4 majority in the Citizens United v. FEC case. "Clarence Thomas released countless amounts of corporate spending on U.S. elections, and Ginni Thomas can get rich advising those corporate clients on how to direct that spending."

David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network (Pat Robertson's outfit) interviews Sarah Palin: "In an exclusive interview with The Brody File, Sarah Palin criticized President Obama for his handling of the situation in Egypt saying that this was his, '3am White House phone call' and, 'that call went right to the answering machine.' Her answers about Egypt are the first time she’s talked publicly about the situation." Includes a partial transcript of the interview, which you know is authentic because it's in classic Palin-speak -- an incoherent, syntactically-challenged, non-specific criticism that in the end says nothing more than "Obama, Muslims bad." ...

... Jeremy Meyer of the Denver Post: "Saying it received an 'onslaught of personal attacks,' a Colorado nonprofit announced in a news release today that it was canceling a scheduled May appearance ... by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin."

Happy Hundredth Birthday, Mr. President. Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress: "ten things conservatives don't want you to know about Ronald Reagan." Actually, the post should probably be titled "ten things conservatives don't know about Reagan," because most really seem to be completely ignorant of Reagan's careless policies and his unpopularity during his presidency.

Local News

Karen Garcia on the draconian, Tea Party-friendly measures of New York's"Democrat-in-Nane-Only" Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

News Ledes

Fox "News": "The United States can't force out Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, but the Egyptian people will no longer allow unresponsive government without representation or free and fair elections, President Obama said in an interview Sunday with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly." See video above.

New York Times: "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned on Sunday that removing President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt too hastily could threaten the country’s transition to democracy. Her remarks were the Obama administration’s most explicit sign yet of its growing emphasis on averting instability in Egypt, even at the expense of the key demand from the Egyptian protest movement: Mr. Mubarak’s immediate removal."

... New York Times: "As the United States and leading European nations threw their weight behind the Egyptian vice president’s attempt to defuse a popular uprising, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood said it would meet with him for the first time on Sunday in what seemed a significant departure in the nation’s uprising and political history." The Times story has been updated to reflect the results of the meeting: "The opposition groups ... said that there were no new agreements or concessions." -- CW: which is to say that HuffPost banner headline "Protesters Win Major Concessions" just ain't true. ...

     ... AP Update: "Representatives from a wide range of Egypt's major opposition groups met Sunday with Vice President Omar Suleiman to discuss a blueprint for reforms.... The opposition groups represented included the youthful supporters of leading democracy advocate Mohamed ElBaradei, who are one of the main forces behind nearly two weeks of mass protests." ...

     ... ** AP Update 2: "Egypt's vice president met a broad representation of major opposition groups ... and agreed to allow freedom of the press, to release those detained since anti-government protests began nearly two weeks and ago and to lift the country's hated emergency laws when security permits. Vice President Omar Suleiman endorsed a plan with the opposition to set up a committee of judiciary and political figures to study proposed constitutional reforms.... The regime also pledged not to harass those participating in anti-government protests.... The government agreed not to hamper freedom of press and not to interfere with text messaging and Internet." ...

 ... The Guardian has the full text of the statement on today's meetings from Suleiman's office (English trans.) on their liveblog @ 3:46 pm GMT.

... Politico: "The White House is now openly pushing for replacing Egypt President Hosni Mubarak with a temporary caretaker government that includes the military and is applauding a decision by Mubarak’s son to step down as head of the country’s ruling party. But a senior administration official said those steps weren’t enough -- and suggested that Mubarak needs to take 'additional steps' to quell the chaos in the streets of Cairo, which is threatening to sink Egypt’s already foundering economy."

AP: "An Iranian court began closed-door proceedings Sunday in the espionage trial of three Americans — two still in custody and one freed on bail — whose detention has been the subject of impassioned family appeals and backdoor outreach by Washington through an Arab ally in the Gulf. The case also highlights the power of Iran's judiciary, which is controlled directly by the nation's ruling clerics and has rejected apparent efforts by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to urge for some leniency."