When Bush Caved to Egypt

[kpete]

When Bush Caved to Egypt

by Matt Latimer

Sympathetic reporters touted Bush’s speech as bold and brave. They had no idea that the Egyptians had cowed the most powerful nation in the world to go against their better instincts.



............Bush frequently castigated the human-rights abuses in Iran and Syria, but seldom shined a spotlight on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or Egypt.

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Sympathetic reporters nonetheless touted Bush’s speech as bold and brave. They had no idea that the Egyptians—like so many others “strategic allies” in the region—had cowed the most powerful nation in the world to go against their better instincts. Predictably, the behavior of the Mubarak regime only worsened.

More dissidents were imprisoned, including a 69-year-old scholar named Saad Eddin Ibrahim, sentenced to two years of hard labor, as The Washington Post reported, for the crime of “tarnishing” Egypt’s image. The Bush White House responded with a tepid expression of “disappointment.” We looked, rhetorically at least, to be on the regime’s side.

In response to withering media criticism, the Bush folks finally figured out that they had been hoodwinked. Bush’s former chief speechwriter Bill McGurn expressed a view shared by many of us at the White House—that the administration was paying the price for pulling our punches with Mubarak in that speech.

the rest:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-30/president-bush-pulled-his-punches-on-egypts-mubarak-too/2/