inside the White House response

Here’s an NY TIMES ACCOUNT that sounds to me like it was leaked by Obama’s people to spin things his way, but which nonetheless contains some insights about internal tensions in the Administration over Egypt.

That said, I thought Obama was at best mediocre during this crisis, and Biden and Hillary Clinton even worse. I fully acknowledge the Realpolitik complexities of U.S. relations with Mubarak, and the parallel relations with Jordan and the Saudis. But all comments from the U.S. government on this situation struck me as completely out of touch with what was actually happening. The U.S. media was largely even worse, however.

Bottom line: the U.S. government wasn’t fully on board with the most exciting thing to happen in world politics in many years. The vanguard of democracy is no longer in Washington, but on the streets of the Arab world.

There was a point in history when the United States had some real moral authority, but we lost a little bit more of it in the past few weeks. And the tragedy of it: this situation was tailor-made for a trademark Obama inspirational speech. I can see why that might have been hard in the midst of the events, but by the end he had maneuvered himself into a position where it was no longer possible even then. Big missed opportunity for the U.S. here.

[UPDATE OF FEB. !4: At the time of writing this I wasn’t aware of Obama’s post-Mubarak speech, which a number of my friends are now telling me was excellent. But the real way to redeem his earlier handling of this situation is to keep up the pressure on the military.]