The Commentariat -- February 1

Tahrir Square, Cairo, February 1. CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE.

For the first time in Egyptian history, from the pharaohs till now, Egypt is having a real revolution. -- Man in Tahrir Square

I think the Tunisia [uprising] was at least fueled by [the release of WikiLeaks documents]. The accepted version of how things happened in Tunisia was that a fruit seller who was mistreated by the government set himself on fire, and this began an uprising.... That all seems to be true, but it also seems to be true that the circulation of the WikiLeaks documents that talked about how the Ben Ali regime lived high off the hog ... clearly did circulate widely, and if it didn't start what happened in Tunisia, it certainly fueled it. -- Bill Keller, New York Times Executive Editor ...

     ... Read excerpts from an NPR "Fresh Air" interview of Keller conducted by Terry Gross. The audio will also be available at this link later today (Tuesday).

Paul Kane & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Congress has taken an unusually bipartisan approach toward the mounting crisis in Egypt, with House and Senate leaders standing behind the Obama administration's message that Egyptians should make an 'orderly transition' to avoid a violent conclusion to the week-long standoff." ...

... CW: then I guess this is the Congressional consensus. John Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a New York Times op-ed: "President Hosni Mubarak must accept that the stability of his country hinges on his willingness to step aside gracefully to make way for a new political structure." ...

... Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration, after initially underestimating the force and determination of anti-government demonstrations in Egypt, appeared Monday to have settled on a public and private course of action that officials hope will lead to President Hosni Mubarak's departure from office sooner rather than later. Senior officials moved to further define the 'orderly transition' they called for over the weekend, and made clear in public statements that they were not impressed by the steps Mubarak has taken to respond to the protests." ...

... Tony Karon of Time: "Monday's announcement by the Egyptian army that it recognized the 'legitimacy' of the demonstrators' demands and refused to use force to disperse them (despite their protest being illegal under existing laws) could mark a turning point in the popular rebellion aimed at bringing down" Mubarak." ...

... Helene Cooper & Scott Shane of the New York Times: Mohamed "ElBaradei ... had a fractious relationship with the Bush administration, one so hostile that Bush officials tried to get him removed from his post at the atomic watchdog agency. But as Egypt’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood and the secular opposition on the streets of Cairo have increasingly coalesced around Mr. ElBaradei to negotiate on their behalf, the Obama administration is scrambling to figure out whether he is someone with whom the United States can deal." ...

     ... CW: but what about this, from cooper & Shane's report? -- "Since the protests in Egypt erupted, Obama administration officials have been trying to reach Mr. ElBaradei, but they had not made contact as of Monday afternoon." How is it that Bob Scheiffer & Fareed Zakaria could have ElBaradei on air, but the State Department can't find him? ...

... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "The Obama administration has sent [former Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner,] a diplomatic troubleshooter with close ties to Egypt, on a mission to Cairo to meet with President Hosni Mubarak and other senior officials, as the administration struggles to gauge Mr. Mubarak’s intentions amid the fast-moving events there.... The choice of Mr. Wisner, 72, a respected elder of the foreign policy establishment, raised questions about whether the administration was using him as an emissary to gently prod Mr. Mubarak to resign. Administration officials declined to say whether they had sent Mr. Wisner with any kind of message." ...

... Dan Lyons in the Daily Beast: "Hours after the government in Egypt shut down that country’s access to the Internet, hackers around the world started banding together to craft some kind of workaround. And one group claims to be only a day or two away from delivering a partial solution. Their initiative is called the Open Mesh Project and it began when Shervin Pishevar, an Internet entrepreneur in Palo Alto, California, posted a message on Twitter calling for help...." ...

... Google: "Over the weekend we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service—the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection. We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow.... Anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet." ...

... Jon Stewart assesses U.S.-Egyptian relations:

... Of course Stephen Colbert supports Mubarak:

Worried about the Egyptian protests? Well, according to Fox "News," you should be because the protesters are radical, Al Qaeda-sponsoring, Jihadist suicide-bombing terroist theocrats. Thanks to the Salon staff for putting together this Montage a Faux:

Stan Collender of Roll Call puts the $1.5 trillion budget deficit in perspective & says the breathless news coverage of the CBO's projection was wa-a-a-y over the top: "

The CBO report was not news because it did nothing more than confirm what was completely understood when the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 was negotiated, debated, passed and signed into law last year. A small story on Page 37 (Is there still a Page 37 in any section of a newspaper these days?) would have been understandable. But there was nothing that justified the front-page, above-the-fold treatment the projection received. Six tax cuts and an extension of unemployment benefits were enacted in December, and the known budget effect of each was to — wait for it — increase the deficit.

** Jason Linkins on H.R. 3, the House Republicans' anti-abortion law, which will severely limit the definition of rape. Linkins charges that the bill's authors hold "the deep and abiding belief among its cosponsors that women are chattel." CW: I won't argue with that.

John Broder of the New York Times: "When he releases his new budget in two weeks, President Obama will propose doing away with roughly $4 billion a year in subsidies and tax breaks for oil companies, in his third effort to eliminate federal support for an industry that remains hugely profitable.... But ... his policies continue to provide for substantial aid to oil and gas companies as well as billions of dollars in subsidies for coal, nuclear and other energy sources with large and long-lasting environmental impacts."

Truthout has serialized Thom Hartmann's book Rebooting the American Dream. Here's the last chapter, in which Hartman concludes:

Our economy is in tatters, the result of more than 30 years of Reaganomics and Clintonomics. Our democracy is hanging by a thread, the result of 40 years of radical Supreme Court decisions steadily advancing the powers of corporations and suppressing the rights of individuals and their government. And our environment is trembling....

     ... You can link to all of the chapters here.

David Sanger & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "New American intelligence assessments have concluded that Pakistan has steadily expanded its nuclear arsenal since President Obama came to office, and that it is building the capability to surge ahead in the production of nuclear-weapons material, putting it on a path to overtake Britain as the world’s fifth largest nuclear weapons power. For the Obama administration, the assessment poses a direct challenge to a central element of the president’s national security strategy, the reduction of nuclear stockpiles around the world."

New York Times Editors: "... the federal Office of Special Counsel found that the Bush White House routinely violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits most federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity. It depicts the Bush Office of Political Affairs, run by Karl Rove, as virtually indistinguishable from the Republican Party.... The Office of Special Counsel does not have the power to discipline former government employees, and it is not clear that any law enforcement agency will look into prosecution.... The Office of Political Affairs should be abolished...."

Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Barbara Bush, one of the twin daughters of George W. Bush, will endorse same-sex arriage< on Tuesday, publicly breaking ranks with a father who, as president, pushed for a constitutional amendment banning such unions":

Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "It was a tough year for Bank of America, what with the foreclosure mess and a sagging stock price. Its chief executive, Brian T. Moynihan, nonetheless received $10 million in his first year on the job."

Roger Vinson, Extreme Activist Judge. Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo: "Vinson tossed the entire [Affordable Care Act] because it lacked a 'severability clause,' which would have compartmentalized the legislation itself and forced judges to weigh individual sections on their own merits. But the standard is not that an unseverable law should be stricken in its entirety. Noted liberal activist judge John Roberts recently struck a sole provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley law, which likewise lacks a severability clause." ...

... Jonathan Cohn: in his illogical, ideological ruling, Judge Vinson gives the Tea Party a shout-out & tosses the conservative mantra of "judicial restraint." ...

... Orrin Kerr, who knows everything about Constitutional law, explains how Vinson's arguments about the commerce clause & the necessary-and-proper clause defy Supreme Court decisions. ...

... BUT Kerr's colleague ato the Volokh Conspiracy Ilya Somen really, really disagrees. ...

... Kate Pickert of Time writing on the same subject: even recent precedent suggests the Supremes will rule that the Affordable Care Act is Constitutional. ...

... Stephanie Cutter of the White House: "Today’s ruling – issued by Judge Vinson in the Northern District of Florida – is a plain case of judicial overreaching. The judge’s decision contradicts decades of Supreme Court precedent." ...

... Igor Volsky of Think Progress: Judge Vinson based a central part of his argument on a Family Research Council brief. ...

... Melissa Nelson & Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the AP: "In one of Vinson's more high-profile trials, he ruled against medical benefits for thousands of military veterans. ... [Their attorney ] argued the veterans were promised lifetime care by recruiters when they enlisted and that military health benefits shouldn't stop at age 65. The ruling was later overturned by an appeals courts."

News Items

Guardian: "The British government is under pressure to take up the case of Bradley Manning, the soldier being held in a maximum security military prison in Virginia..., on the grounds that he is a UK citizen.... Manning is a UK citizen by descent from his Welsh mother, Susan. Government databases on births, deaths and marriages show she was born Susan Fox in Haverfordwest in 1953."

President Obama just spoke (6:45-6:50 pm ET) in support of "an orderly transition" in Egypt. Here's a synopsis from Politico. Washington Post story here. From the White House, here's the text of the speech. Update: New York Times story here. AND here's the speech:

Mubarak says he won't seek another term. New York Times story here. Story has been updated. Protesters say Mubarak's concessions don't go far enough. ...

... New York Times: "President Obama has told the embattled president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, that he should not run for another term in elections in the fall, effectively withdrawing American support for its closest Arab ally, according to American diplomats in Cairo and Washington." ...

...  AP: "More than a quarter-million people flooded Cairo's main square Tuesday in a stunning and jubilant array of young and old, urban poor and middle class professionals, mounting by far the largest protest yet in a week of unrelenting demands for President Hosni Mubarak to leave after nearly 30 years in power."

... New York Times: "... hundreds of thousands of people crammed into Cairo’s vast Tahrir Square on Tuesday, seeking to muster a million protesters demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Their mood was jubilant, as though they had achieved their goals, even though Mr. Mubarak remained in the presidency a day after the Egyptian military emboldened the protesters by saying they would not use force against them and the president’s most trusted advisor offered to negotiate with his adversaries." ...

... New York Times: "Egypt’s economy approached paralysis on Monday as foreign commerce, tourism and banking all but halted, placing acute pressure on President Hosni Mubarak to find a way out of the weeklong chaos." ...

... New York Times: China reacts to the Egyptian uprising by censoring the Web & news items which present the protests as the embodiment of "the pitfalls of trying to plant democracy in countries that are not quite ready for it — a line China’s leaders have long held."

NBC News: "Jordan's Royal Palace says the king has sacked his government in the wake of street protests and has asked an ex-army general to form a new Cabinet. King Abdullah's move comes after thousands of Jordanians took to the streets -- inspired by the regime ouster in Tunisia and the turmoil in Egypt -- and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai who is blamed for a rise in fuel and food prices and slowed political reforms. The Royal Palace says Rifai's Cabinet resigned on Tuesday." ...

... Reuters: "Jordan's King Abdullah on Tuesday asked his former ex-military adviser Marouf Bakhit to form a new cabinet, an official said." Update: the New York Times has more.

New York Times: "Hundreds of people packed into a downtown ballroom on Monday afternoon to watch Governor Patrick J. Quinn, a Democrat, sign a law making civil unions legal for same-sex couples in this state.... The law, which goes into effect on June 1, will provide same sex couples many legal protections now given to married couples, such as emergency medical decision-making powers, inheritance rights, pension benefits, adoption and parental rights, and the ability to share a room in a nursing home."

Washington Post: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday introduced a measure aimed at repealing the national health care overhaul as an amendment to the first Senate bill of the new Congress. McConnell proposed the repeal measure as an amendment to a Federal Aviation Administration funding bill."

CNN: "Democrats have chosen Charlotte, North Carolina, as the host city for the 2012 Democratic National Convention." They'll announce the decision today. More expansive New York Times story here.

New York Times: "South Korea announced on Tuesday that it will hold military talks with North Korea next week — the first inter-Korean dialogue since a deadly artillery exchange in November — while President Lee Myung-bak said for the first time that a future summit meeting with Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, was a possibility."

AP: "American diplomats and other mission employees may not be safe in Iraq if the U.S. military leaves the volatile country at the end of the year as planned, according to a new report ... by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee."