The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Spare Us Your Sermons

Posted on | February 3, 2011 | 54 Comments

“We Are All Egyptians,” Nicholas Kristof declares in a New York Times column with a Cairo dateline.

Except we aren’t Egyptians, and the vast majority of us will never set foot in Cairo. For those of us who aren’t traveling the world on an expense account, the Atlantic‘s Clive Crook offers this helpful reminder:

The Egyptian Revolution Is Not About Us

This is very important to remember. Whatever is happening in Egypt — and frankly, I’m not sure that it’s a “revolution” — it isn’t likely to be influenced by anything I write about it, or Rush Limbaugh says about it.

In fact, there appear to be limits even to Barack Obama’s ability to influence events in Egypt, contrary to rumors that the president is planning to walk to Cairo and feed the protesters with five loaves of bread and two fishes.

Despite our apparent impotence, however, there are a lot of people who seem obsessed with the idea that we must watch what we say about Egypt. They seem to believe that only certain thoughts are permissible about Egypt. If we say the wrong thing, or even think the wrong thing, we might somehow influence the situation in Egypt for the worse.

This is a type of psychotic delusion called “magical thinking”: If we think good thoughts about Egypt, good things will happen in Egypt. If only we believe in peace — with all our hearts! — there will be peace.

According to the Magical Thinking School of Foreign Policy, the root cause of Egypt’s miseries is American wickedness. It is the evil in our own hearts — our ignorance, our prejudice — that has caused these tragic events. Therefore, say the magic thinkers, if we will purify our minds, renounce our xenophobic bigotry, cross our fingers and hope for democracy in Egypt, then democracy in Egypt will happen.

Also, you’ll finally get a pony for Christmas. Read more

Category: Conservatism 101, Egypt

EGYPT: Today’s Latest News Updates: Mubarak Warns of ‘Chaos’ (Video) UPDATE: Five-Day Internet Shutdown Cost Egyptian Economy $90 Million UPDATE: Blogger ‘Sandmonkey’ Free UPDATE: Tanks Fire on Protesters?

Posted on | February 3, 2011 | 8 Comments

Christiane Amanpour interviews Hosni Mubarak:

He said he’s fed up with being president and would like to leave office now, but cannot, he says, for fear that the country would sink into chaos. . . .
When I asked him what he thought seeing the people shouting insults about him and wanting him gone, he said, “I don’t care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country, I care about Egypt.” . . .
When I asked him how he responded to the United States’ veiled calls for him to step aside sooner rather than later, he said he told President Obama, “You don’t understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now.”

Here’s a video news report featuring an interview with Ibrahim Kamel, a member of the ruling National Democratic Party:

UPDATE: The Egyptian NDP is crucial to answering the big question about the violence that began Wednesday: “Who let the thugs out?”

Foreign journalists were beaten with sticks and fists by pro-government mobs on Thursday, and dozens were detained by security forces. The U.S. condemned what it called the “systematic targeting” of the reporters, photographers and film crews who have brought searing images of Egyptian protests to the world.
Foreign photographers reported attacks by supporters of President Hosni Mubarak near Tahrir Square, the scene of vicious battles between Mubarak supporters and protesters demanding he step down after nearly 30 years in power

Who ordered Wednesday’s brutal raid — featuring pro-Mubarak goons riding horses and camels — on Tahrir Square? Who was responsible for the crackdown on the press that resulted in an ABC News producer being threatened with beheading? Permit me suggest that this might be a big clue:

(Via National Journal.) Could it be that the thugs (many of whom carried NDP identification) were doing the bidding of the president’s son, Gamal Mubarak? And could it be that Gamal’s otherwise unexplained ouster from the NDP is related to Wednesday’s hooliganism?

UPDATE II: The latest Associated Press video report:

Also from the Associated Press:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has issued a sharp criticism of attacks on journalists, peaceful demonstrators, human rights activists and diplomats in Egypt.
Clinton said the attacks violated international norms on freedom of the press.
Without directly blaming President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, she said, “It is especially in times of crisis that governments must demonstrate their adherence to these universal values.”

UPDATE III: Wow, this is some amazing news:

Preliminary figures released Thursday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed that Egypt’s decision to block Internet services for five days cost the country an estimated $90 million. The OECD said the blocked telecommunications and Internet services accounted for about 3 percent to 4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, which accounted for about $18 million a day.

The Internet amounts to as much as 4% of the economy in Egypt?

Considering that the Internet provides about 100% of my own personal economy (hint, hint), I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised.

UPDATE IV: Egyptian blogger “Sandmonkey” — who was beaten and detained in Cairo — Tweets about his experience:



Suggestion for Pajamas Media CEO Roger Simon: Bring “Sandmonkey” to Washington next week for CPAC, so I can buy him a beer.

UPDATE V: Time magazine reports:

On Thursday night, an ambulance driver told TIME that he witnessed a tank open fire on anti-government demonstrators near the Egyptian Museum, where pro-Mubarak forces had launched attacks the previous day. “The army has started to cooperate with the pro-Mubarak people. I saw this with my own eyes,” he told TIME. “I saw a tank open fire from the bridge onto the demonstrators below the bridge so that they would be scared and run.”

When I first saw that Tweeted — “Tanks open fire on protesters” — my immediate reaction was two words: Ruh-roh.

But the report seems to indicate that, if the ambulance driver’s account is correct, these were basically just warning shots. I reckon warning shots with a .50-caliber machine gun are pretty serious business, though.

It’s now a little past 7 p.m. ET Thursday, three hours until dawn of Friday in Cairo. We’ll see how the situation develops. Meanwhile, more scary news:

Get Ready for the Muslim Brotherhood

That’s the headline on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s column in (of all places) the New York Times.

UPDATE V: Headline on story by Graeme Wood of the Atlantic:

Why I Was Dragged Through
the Street by an Egyptian Mob

And no, the answer is not, “They thought I was Sully.”

Category: Egypt

El-Baradei: CNN’s Choice, Not Egypt’s

Posted on | February 3, 2011 | 10 Comments

A little-noted passage in a Wednesday news article:

The Obama administration also reached out to Egypt’s top military officer, stressing the U.S. desire to see calm restored to the streets of Cairo, where pro- and anti-Mubarak forces fought with fists, stones and clubs.

One of the things that has puzzled me for the past couple of days is why U.S. media seem so tardy in following up on indications (see yesterday’s Reuters article and Tuesday’s report by Eric Dondero) that Egyptian military chief Lt. Gen. Sami Enan may emerge as the post-Mubarak leader.

The most obvious explanation — one I discussed by phone yesterday with Dondero — is that the Western press evidently jumped to the conclusion last week that Mohamed El-Baradei is the de facto popular leader of the anti-Mubarak opposition. This media-as-deciders trick gets exposed by Egyptian student Sam Tadros at American Thinker:

CNN’s anointed leader of the Egyptian Revolution must be important to the future of Egypt. Hardly! Outside of Western media hype, El Baradei is nothing. A man that has spent less than 30 days in the past year in Egypt and hardly any time in the past 20 years is a nobody. It is entirely insulting to Egyptians to suggest otherwise.

(Hat-tip: Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom.) El-Baradei is just a media-hyped camera hog with no meaningful popular support and — perhaps most importantly — no support within the Egyptian military. And as the Tadros article makes clear (read the whole thing) the army’s distrust of Mubarak’s son Gamal, who has no military background, was an important background factor in the current crisis. Tadros’ criticism of El-Baradei echoes the quote from the Egyptian university professor who called for Gen. Enan to help form an interm government:

We do not want El-Baradei. He spent too much time abroad, and knows nothing of the daily reality of the Egyptian people. He does not represent us.

This explains a lot about what has happened in the aftermath of Tuesday’s speech by Mubarak. Because El-Baradei is not a popular leader and has no real political base, his status as figurehead leader is dependent on the continuation and success of the protest movement. Once the “transition process” turns to actual politics — i.e., organizing a party, canvassing for votes, etc. — El-Baradei is through.

Remember that before Mubarak’s speech, the protesters had already announced that they were planning their biggest demonstration for this Friday. So when Mubarak announced that he would leave office after the September election, what did El-Baradei say to CNN?

El-Baradei, having already delivered an “ultimatum” that Mubarak must leave Egypt by Friday, said Mubarak would be a “dead man walking” if he did not go immediately. 

This radical intransigence by El-Baradei was the precursor of what has happened in the past two days. El-Baradei clearly wants to get credit as the man who overthrows Mubarak, but if that doesn’t happen now — while El-Baradei still has the protest crowds and the TV cameras — then his moment at center stage is past.

CNN and other Western media are assisting El-Baradei in his self-glorifying game. They need to wake up and smell the opportunism.

PREVIOUSLY:

Category: CNN, Egypt

VIDEO: Battle of Tahrir Square

Posted on | February 3, 2011 | 15 Comments

One of my Twitter friends is closely following events in Egypt:

You may have already seen some of this footage showing Wednesday’s charge (by what one of our blog commenters called “irregular cavalry”) on the anti-government protesters in Cairo. But it is, as Alyssa says, “astonishing.”

The Christian Science Monitor has an account of the violence in Cairo. Meanwhile, the site of Egyptian blogger “Sandmonkey” is currently offline, but someone has reposted Sandmonkey’s ominous final post from before his arrest yesterday:

The End is near. I have no illusions about this regime or its leader, and how he will pluck us and hunt us down one by one till we are over and done with and 8 months from now will pay people to stage fake protests urging him not to leave power, and he will stay “because he has to acquiesce to the voice of the people”. This is a losing battle and they have all the weapons, but we will continue fighting until we can’t. I am heading to Tahrir right now with supplies for the hundreds injured, knowing that today the attacks will intensify, because they can’t allow us to stay there come Friday, which is supposed to be the game changer. We are bringing everybody out, and we will refuse to be anything else than peaceful. If you are in Egypt, I am calling on all of you to head down to Tahrir today and Friday. It is imperative to show them that the battle for the soul of Egypt isn’t over and done with. I am calling you to bring your friends, to bring medical supplies, to go and see what Mubarak’s gurantees look like in real life. Egypt needs you. Be Heroes.

Via Memeorandum.

Category: Egypt

Obama ‘Siding With Chaos’?

Posted on | February 3, 2011 | 9 Comments

So says a leading Egyptian businessman:

Shafik Gabr was one of President Obama’s greatest fans eighteen months ago. Today, as Mr. Obama presses for the immediate resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, not so much. “The United States is siding with chaos if they force Mubarak out now,” says Gabr.
Gabr is the Chairman of the Artoc Group for Investment and Development, one of Egypt’s leading businesses. . . .
He is, needless to say, sickened by recent developments. He is also alarmed at the response by the Obama administration. “If the transfer of power happens today, the mobs will rule,” he warns. “It will be similar to the circumstances that brought Hamas to power in Gaza.”

The chaos is described by a BBC reporter in Alexandria:

It’s getting increasingly difficult to work as a foreign journalist here – there’s anger and tension from all sides, not just with the political crisis but also because of the worsening economic situation here. Twice in the last couple of days we have been attacked and driven off by angry locals while trying to film in the streets.
In many areas law and order has completely broken down. One of the country’s biggest shopping malls on the city’s outskirts has been completely ransacked by looters.

President Obama told the National Prayer Breakfast that he’s praying for an end to violence in Egypt. His tardy attempts to stage-manage the situation have already damaged both Egypt and his own influence:

Prior to delivering this clear criticism regarding the insufficiency of Mubarak’s announcement that he would retire only at election time, Obama’s administration had cautiously navigated the crisis in Egypt. But this caution was cast to the wind this week with Washington’s blatant revocation of its endorsement of Mubarak. . . .
“I think that the Obama administration is really struggling to keep up with the events themselves,” Isobel Coleman, senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters.
“Obama and U.S. foreign policy are between a rock and a hard place: On the one hand, to sort of pull out the rug from under Mubarak doesn’t say much for our long-term relations with this guy; on the other hand, we have already been caught on the wrong side of history. The equivocation out of Washington is interpreted very clearly on the streets of Cairo as siding with the government,” said Coleman.

Notice that the White House spent Monday and Tuesday trying to make Obama the protagonist of the Egyptian drama. After Obama’s speech Tuesday, violence erupted Wednesday in Cairo. Now the White House is trying to keep the president off the stage.

Yesterday, the prominent Egyptian blogger known as “Sandmonkey,” whom PJTV’s Roger Simon says is the son of a top Egyptian general, was reportedly beaten, arrested and released. His car was “destroyed” and his cellphone taken away from him.

Drew M. at AOSHQ has an Egyptian news roundup.

UPDATE: Almost forgot – Roger Simon’s telephone interview with Sandmonkey:

UPDATE II: It’s not just Obama’s foreign policy that is implicated in the Egyptian crisis, but also his economic policy, as Dan Collins explains:

The gathering consensus is that the latest events in Egypt, while inspired in large part by “simmering resentment” against Mubarak’s regime, were in fact ignited by food shortages. Egyptian currency is pegged to the dollar, so as the dollar inflates due to “quantitative easing,” the policy of meeting debt obligations by printing more money, food naturally becomes more expensive on the market. So, those who say that Obama has inspired the unfolding events in the Middle East are right in a sense, though it has had little or nothing to do with his grandiloquent speech to the Egyptians during his Apology Tour.
This morning, the Telegraph tells us that worldwide food prices have hit an all-time high. On the global market, this is in part as well a function of rising energy costs, as crude oil now averages over $100 per barrel. . . .

Read the rest. It is little realized what a disastrously destabilizing political force inflation can be.

Category: Egypt

Egypt! Egypt! Egypt!

Posted on | February 3, 2011 | 9 Comments

Turn on the TV news, and that’s all you hear. Whereas Jehovah smote the ancient Egyptians with a series of plagues, now we’re cursed with a repetitive plague of Egyptians on TV news. Dan Collins reacts poetically:

In Aegyptus did Kubla Bam
A peaceful transition decree . . .

Read the rest, although I prefer Dan’s prose to his faux-Coleridge. Linked late Wednesday by Instapundit, who also links Robert Springborg:

The so-called “pro-government” forces are actually Mubarak’s cleverly orchestrated goon squads . . . The opposition, largely cognizant of the dirty game being played against it, nevertheless has had little choice but to call for protection against the regime’s thugs by the regime itself, i.e., the military. And so Mubarak begins to show us just how clever and experienced he truly is. The game is, thus, more or less over.

If this were a socialist regime cracking down on its opposition — e.g., Chavez in Venezuela — the Left would shrug and say something about breaking eggs to make an omelet. But what the Left accepts when done on behalf of the “proletariat,”  it finds intolerable when done without such a revolutionary pretext. Or, as Lenin put it: Who, whom?

However, whereas doctrinaire Marxism is disavowed by the 21st-century American Left — so vehemently, in many cases, that it is considered de facto proof of “extremism” for any conservative even to speak the word “Marxist” as an accusation — the Left has a more difficult time denying that their foreign policy instincts are fundamentally anti-American. That is to say, whenever any overseas problem arises, the leftist insists that under no circumstance should the United States pursue a given policy merely because it would advance U.S. interests.

Mubarak is a U.S. ally? Mubarak must go, says the Left!

To the Left, American interests are inherently illegitimate, which is why the Left sides with the anti-Mubarak protesters even when those protesters shout “jihad” in the streets of Cairo.

If Islamic jihad is bad for America, the leftist reckons, Islamic jihad can’t be all bad. So, mirroring their Cold War stance, the Left in the 21st century may be described as anti-anti-jihad. (And Pamela Geller is Joe McCarthy!)

The auguries are inauspicious, the omens are . . . well, pretty doggone ominous, and Egypt teeters on the brink:

As dawn broke Thursday, heavy gunfire reverberated in central Cairo as the two sides continued to face off at Tahrir Square — the confrontations portending what awaits when Egypt awakes.

It is likely there will be no good outcome in Egypt. Rather, we will get either bad or worse. What can we do, but laugh?

Code Pink Dupes Saved from
Cairo Chaos by Evil Oil Company

That there’s funny, I don’t care who you are!

Category: Egypt

LIVE AT FIVE – 2.3.11

Posted on | February 3, 2011 | Comments Off on LIVE AT FIVE – 2.3.11

TOP NEWS
Mubarak Supporters Strike Back

Mubarak supporters (bottom) attack anti-government protesters

President, supporters dig in against foreign and domestic demands for immediate change

Two Missing In Wake Of Cyclone Yasi
Damage not as bad as initially feared




Yemen Protests: 20,000 Call For Change
President Saleh to step down in 2013; supporters to rally today



POLITICS
Obamacare Repeal Fails On Party-Line Vote

Senators Mike Johanns (R-NE) and John Barrasso (R-WY)

Complete repeal fails 47-51 but 1099 repeal passes; Obama agrees to minor change

EPA Close To Launching Fracking Study

Bittersweet Day As USS Ronald Reagan Deploys From Coronado


Illinois’ Reagan Country Celebrates Centennial

Court Test For Alabama Challenge To “Pre-Approval” Provisions Of Voting Rights Act



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
European Stocks Open Lower On Continued Egypt Tensions
The Fallacy Of Facebook Diplomacy
Texans Warned Of Repeat Rolling Outages During Freeze
Gulf Coast Recovery Expected By 2012
News Corp Launches Tablet-Only Daily
Egypt Gets Internet Back
Apple Clamps Down On Non-App E-Books



SPORTS
Belichick Wins NFL Coach Of The Year

Patriots coach Bill Belichick

Third time for Belichick, who now trails only Don Shula in award wins

Walker Held To Eight Points As UConn Loses Second Straight

Steelers’ Hard-Hitting Harrison Won’t Apologize For His Style

Red Wings’ Depth Helps Negate Injuries

Bulls’ Rose Matches Griffin, Ends Clippers’ Streak



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Lindsay Lohan Suspect In Jewelry Theft

Lindsay Lohan in trouble again?

Unclear if Lohan actually stole necklace

Rolling Stone Interviews Elton John

It’s A Boy For Craig & Megan Ferguson


Jen Tells Oprah She Turned Down SNL For “Friends”

Audrina Patridge Strips Down For Bongo

Kristen Stewart Isn’t Lois Lane Material



FOREIGNERS
Military Steps In To Separate Pro-, Anti-Mubarak Protesters
Pakistan Court Extends Detention Of U.S. Diplomat
Belarus Releases Detainees As EU Readies Sanctions
Irish Expel Russian Envoy Over Identity Thefts For Spies



BLOGS & STUFF
K-Lo: Naivete On Egypt Is Dangerous
Big Peace: What About The Egyptian Army?
POWIP: Kubla Bam
Goldfish & Clowns: Why Should Sarah Palin Care About CPAC?
Jawa Report: Four Israeli Journalists Arrested; Also, More Protester-On-Reporter Violence
Newsbusters: Murdoch – I Would Never Rehire Olbermann
Michelle Malkin: SEIU Says Waivers For We But Not For Thee
Five Feet Of Fury: Canadian “Human Rights” Tribunal Orders Woman’s House Seized After She Complained Muslim Employee’s Lunch Smelled Bad


— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

OMFG! Chelsea Clinton Splitsville?

Posted on | February 2, 2011 | 23 Comments

I’ve ignored a lot of big news today because of the Egypt crisis. The Senate voted 51-47 not to repeal ObamaCare. I missed a perfectly good excuse for a Jon Huntsman joke. And it looks like Lindsay Lohan’s going back to jail. But of all the news I’ve ignored today, I couldn’t ignore this scoop from the National Enquirer:

Chelsea Clinton’s new husband walked out on her after a knock-down, drag-out fight over starting a family, sources say, and now the former first daughter wants an annulment! . . .
“She’s heartbroken, but she isn’t afraid to end the marriage.
“She regrets now that she ever married Marc.”

You lefties want a clear example of a right-winger advocating violence? Here you go:

If you see Marc Mezvinsky on the street, punch him in the nose and tell him I said he’s a lowdown polecat.

It was my tremendous pleasure to meet and talk to Chelsea Clinton during the 2008 campaign. She is a gracious and charming young lady and, contrary to all the cruel jokes from some Republicans, quite attractive.

To thinks that this Mezvinsky cad has abused and abandoned sweet Chelsea — just six months after their wedding! — is the sort of thing that riles my blood. If this Enquirer story is true, Mezvinsky needs a good old-fashioned ass-whupping, and I’m not afraid to say so.

UPDATE: Instapundit today linked a feminist struggling to get her head around chivalry:

Although chivalry involves manners, really, it has to do with gender roles. . . .
Maybe because chivalry seemed like an old-fashioned concept to me, it made me viscerally uncomfortable. Throughout my young adult life as I was forming my feminist political beliefs, I felt weird about men treating me “differently.” . . . Some of that discomfort may have been posturing and proving to myself that I’m strong, not weak. But honestly, much of it came from a genuine, deep-down confusion about 21st century gender roles. . . .
[After meeting her long-term boyfriend] For the first time in my life, I genuinely liked how chivalry made me feel: valued as someone worthy of his extra-special attention, taken care of, to an extent, and even a little bit “ladylike,” whatever that means. . . .
Just like I have a hard time reconciling my feminist beliefs with my desire to be with a more dominant, alpha male, I also have a hard time reconciling my feminist beliefs with my enjoyment of chivalry. I am now figuring out that the two are not mutually exclusive.

See? She allowed an ideological abstraction (feminism) and a modernistic opposition to all things “old fashioned” to stand between herself and her own happiness. Even as she attempts to free herself from these harmful unnatural beliefs, however, Jessica Wakeman cannot recognize that she had been indoctrinated — although this is by no means unusual.

“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.”
– William F. Buckley Jr., Up From Liberalism (1959)

Just as Jessica Wakeman clings to “feminism” despite the fact that it is incompatible with her own happiness, so also do many people fail to recognize that they have been indoctrinated with equally implausible dogmas. For example, they may have been taught silly things about “non-violence”  which blind them to the fact that Marc Mezvinsky needs a good old-fashioned ass-whupping.

UPDATE II: OK, hold the ass-whupping until we verify whether Mezvinsky is indeed a lowdown polecat:

A source close to the couple assures E! News that the former first daughter’s marriage to Marc Mezvinsky is not in trouble, contrary to rumors that Mezvinsky’s recent jaunt to Jackson Hole, Wyo., without his wife meant they were splitting up. . . .
The source says that Mezvinsky recently left his investment banking job at G3 Capital in NYC and is taking “time off” to go skiing.
The breakup reports, spearheaded by the National Enquirer, are “not true,” the source says. “They’re a very happy couple.”

Hmmmm. Excuse me for wondering if that “source close to the couple” is Sidney Blumenthal. Talk about a lowdown polecat in need of an ass-whupping . . .

Category: Celebrities
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