February 20, 2011
DEAF TO THE MUSIC OF DEMOCRACY:
Egypt crisis leaves Obama diminished (Rex Murphy February 19, 2011, National Post)
No one who succeeds to the office of the American presidency can hope to escape a moment of great and defining crisis. It is the conduct of a presidents during such times, in the face of such events — as, for example, Kennedy in the showdown with the Soviet Union in the Cuban missile crisis, or Bush after 9/11 — how quickly they discern the patterns at play, and above all how they project a sense of command and confidence during a crisis, that gives the measure of their stature as leaders.Egypt was Barack Obama’s prism moment. Does he stand taller now after those hisitorical three weeks of suspensful and anxious street revolution? Did he sense, in the manner of all first-rate leaders, from the beginning what was at play, what motions either of nuance or power he could exert to guide events to their best end? Did he accuratelly appreciate America’s interest in these unfolding drama? And could he read the flow of events in a foreign land, sense their potential contagion — which we are now seeing — for other countries in the region?
Crucially, was Mr. Obama, with all the powers and prestige of the American presidency, seen to be an actor in these events or their most illustrious spectator? Did he articulate a coherent reading of the Egyptian crisis in a manner that made him, at least in some part, an overseer and a guide to those events as they unfolded? Did he project from the great pulpit of the White House onto the Egyptian streets some sense of America’s real empathy of what the citizens in those streets were calling for?
Quite the contrary, interviews on the spot revealed how little respect some in Cairo’s square had for him, and their disapppointment that this “new” politician had so little that was really new about him at all.
From the first stirrings in Egypt almost to the very present minute, the President’s response has been an ambiguous shuffle, veering from hypercaution over offending the regime, to soap-bubble platitudes meant to tease approval from, but actually ignored or despised by, the protesting crowds. Obama won no new worshippers in Tahrir Square. What we saw was a President as bystander and occasional chorus, waiting upon events, and clearly without a conceptual or even an instinctive feel for what was unfolding,
It's startling how much he resembles George H. W. Bush, who inherited the fruits of Reagan's labor and didn't know how to deal with it, as Mr. Obama has been baffled by the liberating environment that W left him. On the other hand, can a void be diminished?
