Obama to Mubarak: "Forget Tunisia!"

"Tunisia's popular revolution should have been a wake-up call to the rotting autocracy of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and his supporters in the Obama administration. Instead, Cairo is moving to retrench, with the tacit blessing of President Obama. ........ stonewalling could have been expected from the 68-year-old Abould Gheit, one of Mubarak's most faithful retainers. Nor is it surprising that Mubarak and his court would ignore the alarming signs that Egypt is producing the same sparks that ignited Tunisia ..... More surprising is the Obama administration's defacto suport for Mubarak's immobility. On Tuesday, Obama called Mubarak; according to a White House "readout," they discussed "a broad range of issues, to include the New Year's attack on a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria, developments in Tunisia and Lebanon, and how best to advance Middle East peace." According to both the statement and my own sources, here is what the two did not discuss: the need for change of any kind in Egypt. This in spite of the fact that Mubarak just staged a rigged parliamentary election in which his opposition was systematically and sometimes brutally suppressed ........ observers in Egypt and across the Middle East were quick to get the message: Obama's support for "free and fair elections" does not extend to Egypt..."