Muslim Prayer Service at Valley Park Middle School in Toronto

The Calgary Herald has a nice background report, "Turning school into a mosque victimizes minorities."

And here's Ezra Levant with Kathy Shaidle, via Blazing Cat Fur, "Ezra Levant & Kathy Shaidle On The Marxist Racists At The Toronto District School Board":

Also a great report from Mark Steyn, "HOW UNCLEAN WAS MY VALLEY."

And at National Post, "Spreading Islamist misogyny -with your tax dollars":

It's rare that I see a photograph that makes my blood roil in anger. Or that leads me to share the opinions of Toronto Star columnist Heather Mallick. But a picture published in Saturday's Star managed to do both in one afternoon.

The photo depicts a row of girls sitting in the cafeteria of Valley Park Middle School in Toronto. The row is segregated behind a mass of students who are participating in an Islamic prayer service. The reason the girls in the back are not praying is because -wait for it -they have their periods.

One is tempted to say: Is this the Middle Ages? Have I stumbled into a time warp, where "unclean" women must be prevented from "defiling" other persons? It's bad enough that the girls at Valley Park have to enter the cafeteria from the back, while the boys enter from the front, but does the entire school have the right to know they are menstruating?

These aren't college kids, who are adults or on the verge of adulthood, and can make up their own minds about whether they are comfortable with religious practices that relegate women to the back of the bus. These are impressionable young women, Grade 8 students, who are being sent a very clear message: You are second-class citizens compared to the boys in your school, and third-class at certain times of the month.

And yet more, from Bruce Bawer, at Pajamas Media, "Sharia in Toronto: the Muslim Girls on Their Period Have to Sit in the Back."

Alternative Media is Today's Free Press

From George Scaggs, at Pajamas Media:

The rise of a new press is nothing less than an attempt to re-establish a free press — an essential component of a free society. Sadly, this too has also been misconstrued and confused in the public mind. In our modern age, everything is politicized precisely because government has involved itself in virtually all aspects of life. Having willingly assumed a supporting role in advancing the concept of government which infinitely expands in size and scope, big media has been a central player in this phenomenon.

Big media joins together with government, academia, and various corporate interests to constitute what Angelo Codevilla succinctly identified as “the Elite Ruling Class” in his prodigious essay on the subject.

This relatively minute class is adept at manipulating that plurality of Americans who have come to view the state as an entity that does “for them” rather than “to them,” creating a self-perpetuating momentum. Over time, modern society has become conditioned to adopt whatever this ruling class chooses to foist upon it. Anything goes, from light bulbs to TSA pat-downs.

Used as a tool to keep the whole sordid system propped up, one of big media’s primary roles is to simply parrot big government’s daily proclamations, aiding in creating the perception of omnipotence.

RTWT.

This reminds me of the John Hawkins debate on blogging. Bloggers help keep America free.

I might have more on this later today, but I'll be running around a bit. Hopefully soon though ...

The Meaning of Independence

At the clip, the finale from Saturday night's fireworks at Pechanga:

That was on of the better fireworks shows I can recall. A full video is here. The show was twenty minutes long and the finale was just spectacular.

And check out this essay from E.J. Dionne at the Washington Post, "What our Declaration really said":

Our nation confronts a challenge this Fourth of July that we face but rarely: We are at odds over the meaning of our history and why, to quote our Declaration of Independence, “governments are instituted.”

Only divisions this deep can explain why we are taking risks with our country’s future that we’re usually wise enough to avoid. Arguments over how much government should tax and spend are the very stuff of democracy’s give-and-take. Now, the debate is shadowed by worries that if a willful faction does not get what it wants, it might bring the nation to default.

This is, well, crazy. It makes sense only if politicians believe — or have convinced themselves — that they are fighting over matters of principle so profound that any means to defeat their opponents is defensible.

We are closer to that point than we think, and our friends in the Tea Party have offered a helpful clue by naming their movement in honor of the 1773 revolt against tea taxes on that momentous night in Boston Harbor.

Whether they intend it or not, their name suggests they believe that the current elected government in Washington is as illegitimate as was a distant, unelected monarchy. It implies something fundamentally wrong with taxes themselves or, at the least, that current levels of taxation (the lowest in decades) are dangerously oppressive. And it hints that methods outside the normal political channels are justified in confronting such oppression.

We need to recognize the deep flaws in this vision of our present and our past. A reading of the Declaration of Independence makes clear that our forebears were not revolting against taxes as such — and most certainly not against government as such.

Dionne so badly misses the point on the tea parties, to say nothing of the Declaration of Independence, that I feel bad for him. Keep reading at the link. Anyone can cherry pick the founding documents to find passages and quotations to fit their agenda. Progressives like Dionne are depressed that it's been conservatives and libertarians who've been much more successful in capturing and representing the spirit of individual liberty animating our political culture. I keep seeing progressives argue that the founding documents called for the expansion of government. I mean, c'mon: Dionne is arguing that opposition to taxation is not an element of the Declaration of Independence. But history disproves it, for the ability to tax is the ability to destroy, so to understand opposition to taxation is to realize that government extraction from the people destroys liberty. But again, I feel sad for people like Dionne, because they're getting worried that Americans have awoken from the slumber of affluence and industry, and taken a closer look at how the political class is destroying our very foundations.

In any case, Jeff Jacoby offers the big picture, "Philosophy, faith and the Fourth of July."

Preserving Liberty

Glenn Reynolds has a piece at the Washington Examiner, "Sunday Reflection: Three things you can do for liberty" (via Lonely Conservative).

One of his suggestions? Get active:

It's surprisingly easy to get involved in politics locally, and you can acquire responsibility and influence quite rapidly if you're good with people and willing to put in the work.

Alternatively, you might join a Tea Party group. Those are still springing up all over, and are already having a dramatic influence on both national and local politics.

The tea parties have matured quite a bit since they first broke out in 2009. But joining some kind of group helps form the networks to all kinds of activities and meetups, and some of these involve ties to candidates and party organizations. It'a amazing, really, how substantially local activists and organizations have been mobilized by the Obama regime in Washington. I don't quite recall anything like it, and the Republicans have a lot to worry about from the grassroots as well. Liberty knows no party, and it's time to cut government and restore some freedom.

Melanie Phillips Quits Britain's Spectator Magazine

She has two announcements, "Why I left the Spectator," and "My blog's new home."

There's very little written regarding an explanation why, although Phillips writes: "Those interested to learn more can do so in the update on this CiF Watch post, the original quote from which led to this apology." The apology issued was to Alastair Crooke, Director of Conflicts Forum, "an international movement which engages with Islamist movements broadly ..."

Given Mr. Crooke's background, folks probably have an inkling as to what happened: Melanie blogged about Crooke, he got mad, launched legal action, harming the Spectator financially, and Melanie Phillips felt it necessary to resign.

That just the line of logic, but let's see if I can piece some of this together. For one thing, reports indicate that Alastair Crooke, a former member of Britain's MI6 intelligence agency, had direct and ongoing contacts with Hamas as part of his official business at the British consulate in East Jerusalem. A 2007 blog post by Israeli Eliyahu m'Tsiyon has the details, including a quotation from Melanie Phillips which is no longer available elsewhere. And London's far-left Guardian reported on this, "UK recalls MI6 link to Palestinian militants." These are some really sinister dealings, and Phillips wrote about them. See Jihad Watch, "Melanie Phillips on Alistair Crooke." And following the links takes us to FrontPage Magazine, "Alistair Crooke's Meeting with Sheikh Yassin." I don't see the exact date of Crooke's departure from MI6, but even left-wing sources report on his deep ties to global terrorism. See Mother Jones, "The Spy Who Loved Hamas. And Hezbollah. And Iran."

Now note that the Spectator published an apology to Alastair Crooke, cited by Roy Greenslade at the Guardian:

A blog by Melanie Phillips posted on Jan 28 2011 reported an allegation that Alastair Crooke, director of Conflicts Forum, had been expelled from Israel and dismissed for misconduct from Government service or the EU after threatening a journalist whose email he had unlawfully intercepted. We accept that this allegation is completely false and we apologise to Mr Crooke.

Again, I'm piecing things together, but it looks like Spectator issued the apology as part of a legal settlement, which has the New Statesman's Mehdi Hasan jumping for joy:

... was this a voluntary or enforced departure? The blogger Guido Staines beat me to it, but I can't help but notice how the Spectator has had to apologise to Alastair Crooke, director of Conflicts Forum, on its website this week, after a blogpost by Phillips made "false" allegations about Crooke's past. Phillips's decision to move on might just be a coincidence but a well-connected source tells me that the payout to Crooke cost the Spectator "tens of thousands of pounds" and left Fraser Nelson and Andrew Neil "furious" with her.

So we're now back to Melanie Phillips' blog entry, where she writes, "For legal reasons, I cannot go into the details."

The legal reasons appear to be (further) threats of legal action, but Melanie Phillips has rejected the premise of the apology. And CiF Watch says Phillips made "no such" allegation regarding threats from Alastair Crooke.

Well, we know that Alastair Crooke's collaborating with terrorist organizations, and as Melanie Phillips was writing about it, my sense is that someone made threats, and since this controversy involves people at the highest levels of British power, clearly some pro-jihadists had strong incentive to destroy Melanie Phillips. And what's more fascinating is that so called right-wing outlets are simply crippling under threats and apparent litigation. Indeed, Mehdi Hasan can't contain his glee:

Blinded by their monomaniacal obsession with Islamists under every British bed, members of the UK media's neoconservative faction have been the subject of other (successful) legal complaints and libel actions in recent years.

These legal complaints look sketchy, "successful" or not, given all that we know about Alastair Crooke. Clearly, if Melanie Phillips was speaking truth to power her own health and livelihood became increasingly at risk. And this is something I've been writing about quite a bit, since Scott Eric Kaufman and Carl Salonen launched campaigns of workplace intimidation against me, including libelously false allegations of sexual harassment, with potentially very damaging personal consequences, simply for speaking truth to their evil deeds. And while I'm not an author of such prominence as Melanie Phillips, some allegations against me have gone all the way to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, a Democrat. So the similarity is to the lengths at which progressives will go to literally destroy those who speak the truth. Remember, for radical leftists and jihad enablers, "truth is the new hate speech." And I want to remind people of my report on Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, who announced on Canadian television:

The thing is, you don't care about freedom of speech until you've lost it. But I'm here to tell you that I will never, ever give up the fight for freedom of speech.

Neither will I.

Steven Crowder on the Free Enterprise System

Via Theo Spark:

In Defense of 'Hurtful' Speech

Some big news today on Geert Wilders' acquittal, at Telegraph UK, "Geert Wilders 'delighted' after being cleared of 'hate speech'."

And he writes about it at Wall Street Journal. A snippet:

The biggest threat to our democracies is not political debate, nor is it public dissent. As the American judge Learned Hand once said in a speech: "That community is already in the process of dissolution . . . where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists to win or lose." It has been a tenet in European and American thinking that men are only free when they respect each other's freedom. If the courts can no longer guarantee this, then surely a community is in the process of dissolution.

RELATED: At Atlas Shrugs, "PAMELA GELLER, BIG GOVERNMENT: GEERT WILDERS VERDICT: WEST 1, ISLAM 0."

And EXTRA LULZ: Lizard Loser Charles Johnson is bummed that Wilders was acquitted: "Dutch Hatemonger Geert Wilders Acquitted of Inciting Hatred."

Ban the Burka?

Perhaps.

See Licia Corbella, at Calgary Herald, "More evidence why the West should ban the burka" (via Blazing Cat Fur):

"Women who do not wear head scarves are being threatened with violence and even death by Islamic extremists . . .," states opening sentence of an April 18 story in the Daily Mail in Britain.

Sadly, nothing unusual there, except that these threats are being made to non-Muslim women. Again, this is not unusual, since that happens throughout much of the Islamic world that imposes rules about dress on all women, regardless of their religion.

What makes the above news so disturbing is the women who are being threatened with violence and even death by Islamic extremists for not wearing a hijab (the Muslim head covering) and a veil (the niqab) are non-Muslim women living in . . . wait for it . . . Great Britain. Yes, you read that correctly. Non-Muslim women in a free and democratic country are being threatened with violence or death in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood of London, no less.

But hey, no need to worry about creeping sharia in the West.

RTWT.

Man's Rights

Well, with all the recent talk about "Atlas Shrugged," I've been skimming back over some of her writings. The novel is almost 1,100 pages, and I have no plans to re-read it (although I'm considering The Fountainhead for another round). I have been reading some of Rand's essays, for example, "Man's Rights", which is featured in her book, The Virtue of Selfishness. A sample:

The principle of man’s individual rights represented the extension of morality into the social system—as a limitation on the power of the state, as man’s protection against the brute force of the collective, as the subordination of might to right. The United States was the first moral society in history.

All previous systems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end in itself. The United States regarded man as an end in himself, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary coexistence of individuals. All previous systems had held that man’s life belongs to society, that society can dispose of him in any way it pleases, and that any freedom he enjoys is his only by favor, by the permission of society, which may be revoked at any time. The United States held that man’s life is his by right (which means: by moral principle and by his nature), that a right is the property of an individual, that society as such has no rights, and that the only moral purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights.

A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self- sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action-which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)

The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.

More at the link.

As More Americans Have Become Dependent on Federal Programs, Republicans Have Struggled to Uphold the Animating Principles of the Party

For some reason, progressives see the budget deal as a win for Republicans, and a few conservatives have as well. But we're going to need $100s of billions in reduced spending before we can really claim to be shrinking the public sector and restoring both fiscal sanity and limited government. And of course those on the left don't care about balancing the budget, since government expansion has been put in overdrive since Obama took office. But folks who do care should get a load of James Capretta's piece in the Winter 2011 issue of National Affairs, "Priorities for a New Congress."

In 2009, the federal government ran a budget deficit of $1.4 trillion, or 10% of the nation's gross domestic product. That was followed by a deficit of $1.3 trillion in 2010, or 8.9% of GDP. The 2011 deficit is expected to reach about 10% of GDP again. While revenues have declined because of the recession, this massive increase in deficits has been driven mostly by enormous growth in spending: Between 1990 and 2008, annual federal outlays averaged 20% of GDP, but in 2010 spending reached 23.8% of GDP — a difference of about half a trillion dollars per year. To see where such reckless imbalances lead, consider that, at the end of 2008, federal debt stood at $5.8 trillion; on its present course, it will be $20 trillion by 2020.

To make matters worse, these frightening figures do not even fully reflect the cost of paying out entitlement benefits to the retiring Baby Boom generation. Between 2010 and 2030, the number of Americans age 65 and older will increase from 41 million to 71 million. The Congressional Budget Office projects that spending on the nation's largest entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — reached 10.3% of GDP in 2010, up from 5.4% in 1975. By 2030, the combined costs of these programs (including the provisions of the new health-care law, if it is fully implemented) will have risen to 14.7% of GDP, or nearly $3 trillion. In other words, over the next two decades, the federal budget is scheduled to absorb new entitlement-spending commitments that are roughly the size of the entire Social Security program today.

The only real options for closing the budget gap are to lower spending, increase revenues, or pursue some combination of both. Republicans won the 2010 election in large part because most Americans do not trust the Democrats to solve this problem: They believe that unified Democratic control of the executive and legislative branches will mean a heavy tilt toward tax increases to reduce deficits and borrowing. Americans would prefer their elected leaders to come at the deficit problem from the other side, cutting government spending so that it does not exceed available revenue.

It's a great piece, so check out the rest at the link above.

Lindsey Graham Blames Kooky Koran-Burning Pastor for Animalistic Beheadings of United Nations Workers in Afghanistan

This story got going yesterday with Senator Graham's comments on Face the Nation. I've never been a Graham-hater, but I'm definitely not a fan at this point. The dude fails the most basic lesson of the First Amendment: The antidote to offensive speech is more speech. I hate flag burning, but the Supreme Court's 1989 ruling in Texas v. Johnson is central to preserving the marketplace of ideas. By allowing someone to burn the flag we uphold the values for which the flag stands. It's extremely offensive. But as symbolic speech it affirms our freedoms.

So I cringe at this interview with Senator Graham at National Review. I denounced Koran-burning last year during all the controversy surrounding the Ground Zero mosque. Pastor Terry Jones is an idiot, and while I support his right to burn Islam's holy book, the same rule applies: Burning the flag is extremely offensive, and so is Koran burning. I don't endorse either form of expression, but I wouldn't attack either as un-American. That's not to say burning the Koran is the right thing to do, especially with how freighted the act is in this environment. But one lone wacko is not responsible for rampaging murderous Muslims 6 thousand miles away. What's evil is the reversal of responsibility game that everyone's playing, from the White House on down. And the headline sets the debate at New York Times, "Afghans Avenge Florida Koran Burning, Killing 12." And also, "Afghans Protest Koran Burning for Third Day." Well, at least the editors at the Baltimore Sun get it. "The U.S. has condemned Quran burning; will Afghans condemn the violence?":

There's no doubt that the publicity-seeking Florida minister who burned a Quran to demonstrate his hatred of Muslims committed a pointlessly provocative and reprehensible act. But the reaction of Afghan rioters who killed at least innocent 20 people in retaliation for what they saw as an intolerable insult to Islam is even more indefensible. And while there are plenty of Americans willing to speak out against anti-Muslim intolerance, where are the Afghan leaders willing to condemn the violence committed by their fellow Muslims?

And check this out:

To their credit, the national news media withheld the lavish coverage it had previously provided the minister's obvious play for attention. As a result, Mr. Jones' reckless provocation initially went largely unnoticed in the Muslim world. But then for some reason known only to himself, Afghan President Hamid Karzai chose to resurrect the issue in a speech on Thursday, in which he sharply criticized U.S. forces for accidentally killing innocent civilians and called for Mr. Jones' arrest for the "crime" of insulting Islam.

Having lived in the U.S., Mr. Karzai knows perfectly well that U.S. law doesn't permit police to arrest people simply for exercising their right of free speech — however repugnant such speech may be. He also had to know that publicizing Mr. Jones' lunacy during a televised address might very well stoke extremist elements in his own country to commit acts of violence and cause the loss of innocent lives. But whatever twisted political calculation led him take such a risk, Mr. Karzai's criticism of his American partners and his calls for Mr. Jones' arrest have only grown more strident since the rioting began on Friday.

One almost gets the impression the Afghan leader is deliberately fomenting unrest among his people, perhaps in a desperate attempt to deflect criticism from the corruption and incompetence of the government he leads. He has always been a shaky ally whose integrity was doubtful at best.

But Mr. Karzai's is not the only voice in Afghanistan. Where are the other leaders of that country who have the moral authority to condemn the violence and the courage to speak out against bigotry and intolerance? Mr. Jones acted recklessly and without regard to the danger others might find themselves in as a result of his shameless self-promotion and puffery. He is a vain, selfish man, the exact opposite of what a true spiritual leader should be. Perhaps that is why he has never been able to attract a flock of followers and relies instead on the anonymous audiences provided by the television news cameras to get his twisted message across.

Yet for all his failings, Mr. Jones did not commit a single act of violence or cause any person physical harm. It was the mullahs in Afghanistan, who whipped their congregations into a frenzy, and the rioters themselves who are to blame for the 20 deaths so far around the country, including seven at a United Nations compound, and injuries to dozens more.

Nope. Not a single act of violence, but Graham's ready to criminalize political opinion in America. (And President Obama's "condemning" the "hate speech.") Boy, wouldn't want to offend those murderous mobs across Afghanistan.

See also Mark Steyn, who calls Graham a "wretched buffoon": "Re: Lindsey Graham and the First Amendment."

'Let the People of Egypt Vote'

Via Ahmed Al Omran on Twitter:

She's Saudi, apparently, but a precocious little thing like this is the face of modernity for the Middle East.

And in other news, some conservatives and libertarians are still resisting democratic change in Egypt. Sure, no doubt ElBaradei is a poor prospect, although I'm still waiting to see who will form a viable secular opposition. And as I noted previously, we saw ElBaradei shilling for the Muslim Brotherhood yesterday on CNN. So let's be clear about no illusions here. I've chronicled the risks over the last few days. But as Victor Davis Hanson pointed out, Mubarak's regime is the ultimate source of popular discontent, and maintaining the status quo will simply exacerbate the rage on the street. Building on that sentiment is Danielle Pletka, "How Should the US Respond to the Protests in the Middle East?":

Some say that a freedom agenda only opens the door to Islamists; the truth is that our support for secular dictators does more for Islamists than democracy promotion ever did. We have an opportunity to right our ways and stand with the people of the Middle East - not forgetting Iran - in their quest for basic freedom. But it's going to take more than bland statements and White House hand-wringing. The president himself needs to stand up and unequivocally make clear America's position: in favor of the people over their oppressors. Suspend aid to the Egyptian government. Initiate an immediate review of all programs in the Middle East. Get the word out to our diplomats. Now.

See also, Michael Rubin, "The U.S. Should Not Fear Egypt Regime Change":

Today, the U.S. is paying the price for its refusal to cultivate liberal opposition. Next to Iraq and Afghanistan, Egypt hosts the largest American embassy in the world. That no American diplomat saw this uprising coming, however, should raise serious questions about how our embassies operate. That the Muslim Brotherhood presents a real challenge to American policy is undeniable. In neither Tunisia nor Egypt, however, have Islamists led the popular protests, although there is a risk that the Brotherhood may co-opt the protests. The mistake the White House has made in the past - both under Bush and Obama - is that it has accepted the rhetoric of democracy and liberalism without setting tough standards. Militias should never be accepted as political parties, nor should any group that legitimizes terrorism ever have America's imprimatur. The sooner the White House and State Department engage non-violent opposition groups in the Middle East, the more influence the U.S. will enjoy when the going gets rough and the dictators get going.

That's one way to tackle the Muslim Brotherhood question, and while sweet-sounding and wonkish, it's not satisfying in the short term. Jihad Watch reports that the Muslim Brotherhood has pledged war with Israel in the advent of power: "Muslim Brotherhood Leader: Prepare for War with Israel."

Things are still really up in the air. See Business Week, "Egypt’s Suleiman to Seek Dialogue With Opposition," and New York Times, "Government Offers Talks After Army Says It Will Not Fire." But see Foreign Policy, "White House Prepares for Life After Mubarak." Also at Memeorandum.

Anyway, I'll have more later.

And no, I'm not a socialist.

PREVIOUSLY: "Move Quickly on Egypt Democracy."

Added: From Laura Rozen, "Egypt VP Suleiman, Defense chief preparing transition from Mubarak rule, analyst says."

Move Quickly on Egypt Democracy

I've been reading around the conserva-sphere, and there's a lot of backtracking on Egypt. The euphoria's gone, replaced with a deep fear of an Islamist regime in Cairo. It's certainly understandable. This New York Times story on Israel paints near trembling at the prospects of collapse of secularist Egypt: "Israel Shaken as Turbulence Rocks an Ally." And Melanie Phillips, one of my favorite writers, made a surprisingly pointed effort to distance herself from the neoconservative agenda of democracy promotion: "The Arab world on the brink...but of what?"

But folks need to get a grip. Nostalgia for Mubarak is exceedingly misplaced. Yeah, he's our guy and all that. But he's been a disaster for Egypt's development, and in an age of increasingly rapid global communications, the regime's failures are exponentially multiplied by the day. Victor Davis Hanson points out that the roots of radicalism in Egypt have more to do with Mubarak's rule than anything found in Israel or the United States, "What’s the Matter with Egypt?"

What’s next? “Finger-in-the-wind” diplomacy may work for a while, but it requires deftness that follows conditions on the street in a nanosecond to avoid appearing purely cynical (a skill beyond Hillary, Biden, and Obama). I think in this bad/worse choice scenario we might as well support supposedly democratic reformers, with the expectation that they could either fail in removing Mubarak or be nudged out by those far worse than Mubarak. Contrary to popular opinion, I think Bush was right to support elections in Gaza “one time” (only of course). The Gazans got what they wanted, we are done with them, and they have to live with the results, happy in their thuggish misery, with a prosperous Israel and better-off West Bank to remind them of their stupidity. All bad, but an honest bad and preferable to the lie that there were thousands of Jeffersonians in Gaza thwarted by the U.S.

So step back and watch it play out with encouragement for those who oppose both Mubarak and the Muslim Brotherhood— hoping for the best, expecting the worst.

And as I indicated earlier, the dawdling Obama administration is only empowering the Green-Red alliance working to bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power. Even mainstream progressives are pooh-poohing the Brotherhood's ties to Hamas and global jihad. So we need to move quickly in transitioning to an interim government committed to free-and-fair elections in the near-term. William Kristol offers the appropriate response, "Beyond Mubarak: ‘Twere Well It Were Done Quickly":

In a crisis like this, moving quickly is often more important than moving in an “orderly” way. After all, an “orderly” transition is far less important than a desirable and orderly outcome. Trying to ensure now that everything is “well thought-out” to the satisfaction of diplomats can easily become an excuse for a drawn-out transition. And that means trouble. The more drawn-out this transition is, the more likely it is to end badly. The best case—the least radicalizing one for the population, the least advantageous for the Muslim Brotherhood—would be a quick transition now to an interim government, with the prospect of elections not too far off, so people can rally to the prospect of a new liberal regime. Uncertainty and dithering is what helps the Lenins and Khomeinis in revolutionary situations. Acting boldly to prevent more disarray and more chaos offers the best chance for an orderly outcome.

I'd recommend folks visit Jennifer Rubin for updates throughout the day as well. She hammered the administration's dalliances earlier, "On Egypt, Obama offers 'too little, too late'." And in another entry she points to the pragmatic manifesto of Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee:

"For far too long the democratic hopes of the Egyptian people have been suppressed. Their cries for freedom can no longer be silenced.

"I am deeply concerned about the Egyptian government's heavy-handed response seeking to silence the Egyptian people. It is imperative that all parties involved avoid violence.

"I am further concerned that certain extremist elements inside Egypt will manipulate the current situation for nefarious ends.

"The U.S. and other responsible nations must work together to support the pursuit of freedom, democracy, and human rights in Egypt and throughout the world."

That's the right balance and the right approach. It's time to move forward. The neo-communists will seize the initiative and attempt to install the Islamists in power. Their useful idiots on the progressive left --- in the media and Democrat Party apparatus --- will help propel that outcome. For the true friends of freedom, the best bet is to quit whining about how bad the Muslim Brotherhood is and start working to help the Egyptians on the street take back their country. Those folks are at the top video above. They help us capture a vision of what an emerging secularist democracy could look like.

Facing the Unknown in Egypt

From Ross Douthat, at New York Times, "The Devil We Know":

As the world ponders the fate of Egypt after Hosni Mubarak, Americans should ponder this: It’s quite possible that if Mubarak had not ruled Egypt as a dictator for the last 30 years, the World Trade Center would still be standing.

This is true even though Mubarak’s regime has been a steadfast U.S. ally, a partner in our counterterrorism efforts and a foe of Islamic radicalism. Or, more aptly, it’s true because his regime has been all of these things.

In “The Looming Tower,” his history of Al Qaeda, Lawrence Wright raises the possibility that “America’s tragedy on September 11 was born in the prisons of Egypt.” By visiting imprisonment, torture and exile upon Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak foreclosed any possibility of an Islamic revolution in his own country. But he also helped radicalize and internationalize his country’s Islamists, pushing men like Ayman Al-Zawahiri — Osama bin Laden’s chief lieutenant, and arguably the real brains behind Al Qaeda — out of Egyptian politics and into the global jihad.

At the same time, Mubarak’s relationship with Washington has offered constant vindication for the jihadi worldview. Under his rule, Egypt received more American dollars than any country besides Israel. For many young Egyptians, restless amid political and economic stagnation, it’s been a short leap from hating their dictator to hating his patrons in the United States. One of the men who made this leap was an architecture student named Mohamed Atta, who was at the cockpit when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center.

These sound like good reasons to welcome Mubarak’s potential overthrow, and the end to America’s decades-long entanglement with his drab, repressive regime. Unfortunately, Middle Eastern politics is never quite that easy. The United States supported Mubarak for so long because of two interrelated fears: the fear of another Khomeini and the fear of another Nasser. Both anxieties remain entirely legitimate today.

RTWT.

Douthat is right to say that, in the end, the Egyptians have the last word on what government is right for them. But looking at the clip above, with the "we have to destroy Israel" sentiment, it's gonna be a rocky road ahead.

And here's an exit question. Do you think the signatories of this "Open Letter to President Barack Obama" are saying the same thing?

In order for the United States to stand with the Egyptian people it must approach Egypt through a framework of shared values and hopes, not the prism of geostrategy. On Friday you rightly said that “suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away.” For that reason we urge your administration to seize this chance, turn away from the policies that brought us here, and embark on a new course toward peace, democracy and prosperity for the people of the Middle East. And we call on you to undertake a comprehensive review of US foreign policy on the major grievances voiced by the democratic opposition in Egypt and all other societies of the region.

A number of prominent communists are signatories. And for the left, this is an anti-colonial revolution with explicitly anti-Zionist goals attached to it. (I'll scour around for more, but you'll get a chill reading some posts at Mondweiss. For example, "This revolution ‘undoubtedly means the end of Israel as a Jewish state’.")

That's frightening. Still, there's obviously no turning back on revolutionary change. The trick is to manage it. The goal is a reasonably secular interim government committed to democracy.

Expect updates ....

Mohammed ElBaradei to Form Government of National Unity?

It's a possibility I raised previously. And I think his comments constitute among the most important developments of the day. The guys over at Hot Air pretty much hit all the bases, "ElBaradei: Hit the road, Mubarak."

ElBaradei makes three main points: (1) Mubarak has to go; (2) there must be a transition from dictatorship to democracy, with the subordination of the military to civilian rule; and (3) the Muslim Brotherhood is not an extremist conservative religious organization. He also tells CNN's Fareed Zakaria that he'll serve as interim president if that's what the public wants. But clearly, his views on the Muslim Brotherhood are extremely controversial and deeply problematic. There's certainly been some discussion of this around the sphere. Andrew McCarthy is emphatic in pointing out that, frankly, the Muslim Brotherhood is Hamas, despite media spin and progressive propaganda to the contrary: "Hamas Is the Muslim Brotherhood." And Frank Gaffney points out the larger security threat: "The Muslim Brotherhood is the Enemy."

At any rate, check the mainstream press reporting for background, at LAT, "EGYPT: Opposition leader urges U.S. to stop backing Mubarak," and NYT, "Jubilant Protesters Hail ElBaradei." And while I'd like to see some movement here, and I don't personally oppose ElBaradei in the interim, it's going to tremendous effort to cultivate secularism and civil society over extremism and Islamist jihad. And to close on a less optimist note than I've been taking, here's Nonie Darwish, "Egypt Between Dictatorships And Revolutions: A Choice Between Bad and Worse":

The choice in Egypt is not between good and bad, it is between bad and worse. The Muslim world lacks the understanding of what is hindering them and lacks the moral and legal foundation for forming a stable democratic political system. They will continue to rise and fall, stumble from one revolution to another and living from one tyrant to another looking for the ideal Islamic state that never was. The 1400 year old Islamic history of tyranny will continue unless Sharia Law is rejected as the basis of the legal and political systems in Muslim countries.

BONUS: At The Other McCain, "Egyptian Uprising: Latest Updates," and the commentary at Memeorandum.

Hillary Clinton on Meet the Press: No 'Faux Democracy' in Egypt

I watched this NBC segment with David Gregory's interview of Secretary of State Clinton. But Clinton made the rounds of all of the Sunday talk shows, and LAT has the details, "Hillary Clinton says U.S. not pushing for ouster of Egyptian President Mubarak":

Reporting from Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday called for Egypt to move toward "real democracy" but also made clear that the United States was not demanding that embattled President Hosni Mubarak step down in the face of continuing demonstrations.

In a series of television interviews, Clinton also eased slightly off the administration's threats on Friday to yank Egypt's billions in aid, saying such a step was not now under discussion.

Clinton spoke warmly of the Egyptian military as a "respected institution" and advised it to help move the country from its current unrest to an "orderly transition."

"We are urging the Mubarak government, which is still in power; we are urging the military, which is a very respected institution, to do what is necessary to facilitate that kind of orderly transition."

She spoke to NBC's "Meet the Press," "Fox News Sunday," ABC's "This Week," CBS' "Face the Nation," and CNN's "State of the Union."

U.S. officials are looking for what they are calling "managed change" -- a gradual transition to elections that lead the way to a greater sharing of power and economic reforms. With the Iranian revolution of 1979 in mind, they fear an abrupt transition that would lead to turmoil and a possible seizure of power by what they feel is the wrong kind of leadership.

Egypt has a powerful military that has kept the ruling party in place for more than 30 years. Its largest and best-organized opposition group is the banned Muslim Brotherhood. In this environment, other opposition groups have not been able to develop, and that absence could make a democratic transition difficult.

And at Politico, "Hillary Clinton calls for 'real democracy' in Egypt":

“Real stability only comes from the kind of democratic participation that allows people to feel that they are being heard,” Clinton said in an interview with ABC’s “This Week with Christiane Amanpour,” calling for “real democracy.”

She warned that the U.S. would not accept two alternatives as potential ends to the current crisis: “democracy of six months or a year and then evolving essentially into a military dictatorship” or – a scarier specter for American policymakers –what she described on NBC’s “Meet The Press” as “faux democacy like the elections we saw in Iran…where you have one election 30 years ago and the people stay in power and become less and less responsive to their people.”

Picking Sides in Egypt? Choose Freedom — Resist the Red-Green Alliance of Anti-Israel Fanaticism

By now folks are anticipated the end of the Mubarak regime. Unfortunately, the political and ideological battles lines are not so neatly drawn. I personally hesitate to attack the Obama adminstration as alleging aiding the Islamists, as in the case of my good friend Reaganite Republican, "Obama Secretly Schemed with Egyptian Opposition for 'Regime Change' for Years!" The evidence there is based on a single WikiLeaks cable published at Telegrah UK and the significance depends on how we define "opposition." The Egyptian opposition movement is broad, and the Muslim Brotherhood has long been the most well organized and highly mobilized. So there's danger there. But as Pamela points out, the fight is for freedom. If anything, the administration has been way too restrained in its approach to the protests. And by standing on the side of dictatorship, Obama gives aid and comfort not just to Islamist extremists, but the world solidarity movement seeking to delegitimize and destroy Israel. The first shot below is from Joshua Keating and the second, from a CNN screencap, shows a protester sporting Arafat's keffiyeh. Clearly, the neo-Stalinist ANSWER contingents have infiltrated the protests, turning opposition to Mubarak into a totalitarian red-green alliance for terror and Israel's destruction: "The Red-Green Alliance: Muslim Brotherhood, ANSWER Battle Mubarak."

The problem will be to sort through the range of opposition groups to find those who truly support freedom. It's not the ANSWER hordes, nor is it those at the far-left Salon, who have published a screed from self-hating Israel-basher Philip Weiss, a.k.a, Mondweiss, "Why is America So Afraid?":

The grimness on the faces of American Establishment figures reflects the greatest threat to authority, the crumbling of an existing order. Support for Israel has defined order in this region for decades and steered our support for dictators ... All this is changing in Egypt. An Arab liberation story is forcing itself into world consciousness ... There is bound to be great suffering in Egypt, we pray for a smooth transition, but if the Egyptians are only left to handle their own affairs, who doubts that the polity that will emerge from this chaos will be more responsive to human rights, and will strike a blow against the fetters of anti-Arab racism that have chained the American mind.

Pamela has more on the Salon communists, "Scrubbing and Smearing: Islamic vs. Secular Governance in Egypt - Leftist Islamic Machine in High Gear." Also, related at Blazing Catfur, "Egypt 'Support' Rally Hijacked By the Usual Islamist Suspects & Their Enablers."



This is not to say it will be easy sorting through the lines of opposition. The report from tour guide Amos Abidov is illustrative. Leading a group of visitors to Epypt, he reports:

How is the atmosphere? Do you feel secure?



"The attitude towards us as Israelis and tourist is very friendly. Actually, they're overly nice compared to my previous visits in Egypt. The Egyptians want to explain themselves, to tell everyone about their struggle. They speak Arabic over here so it's easy to communicate with them. On Friday we went right past the demonstrations on our way back from the pyramids, and people helped us get though the crowd."

Looks like the Muslim Brotherhood folks weren't on the scene.



That said, the danger remains in the larger political and strategic situation. Two reports are worth checking. At Pajamas Media, Barry Rubin warns of a fundamentalist regime coming to power, and at STRATFOR, "Red Alert: Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood." Hamas cells from Gaza have made their way into Egypt, working there with fundamentalist elements in the security apparatus. All told, the challenge is monumental, but as the tourist passage above illustrates, the end result of regime formation in Egypt is ultimately a political question.



There's an excellent (and extremely cautious) roundup at Sister Toldjah's, "Egypt: 'Things are never so bad they can’t get worse'." And the post links to the very pessimistic interview with Ambassador John Bolton at Fox News from Friday.



So, if we have to choose, it's not a choice between the authoritarianism of Mubarak's nationalist regime and those of the Red-Green alliance for Islamist terrorism. The choice is freedom. And had the Obama administration been out in front on this, the peaceful elements --- like those helping the Israel tourists above --- could have gained the upper hand in the emergence of a new regime. It's not too late. But no matter what happens, we can see the battle lines ahead. Freedom and democracy on the one hand, and violent anti-American, anti-Israel totalitarianism on the other.