TIME TO THREATEN THEIR PAYOLA:

Rice Calls Off Mideast Visit After Arrest of Egyptian (JOEL BRINKLEY, Feb. 25, 2005, NY Times)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday abruptly called off a planned trip to several Middle Eastern countries that had been scheduled for next week, a decision that came apparently because of the arrest of a leading Egyptian opposition politician last month.

The decision highlighted a rift with an important ally over President Bush's push for democratic change. It came a day after Mr. Bush's tense meeting with Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, who was clearly uncomfortable with Mr. Bush's criticism of Russia's democracy. [...]

The immediate trigger for the tensions was the arrest on Jan. 28 of Ayman Nour, a member of Egypt's largely powerless Parliament and head of an opposition party called Al Ghad, or Tomorrow. When Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit visited Washington last week, Ms. Rice made her displeasure clear, officials said.

After the meeting, Mr. Gheit protested that Mr. Nour's arrest was an internal Egyptian matter, and Suleiman Awad, the spokesman for President Hosni Mubarak, said he rejected "any foreign interference in Egypt's internal affairs."

Some members of Congress then began urging Ms. Rice not to attend the meeting of Arab and Group of 8 nations in Cairo. One of them, Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who is on the Middle East subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, co-sponsored a resolution condemning Egypt for arresting Mr. Nour.

"To attend a conference on democracy in Egypt right now would be the height of irony," Mr. Schiff said in an interview on Friday. "The State Department must send the message to Egypt that it is on the wrong track, that we are no longer willing to overlook these things."

Remember how the President couldn't possibly mean all this liberty guff and certainly wouldn't apply it to "allies"?

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 26, 2005 9:36 AM