EGYPT UPDATE – AT 7:18 P.M. ET:  Not a good tourist day in Egypt.  There was more violence, generated, we're told, by the pro-Mubarak forces.  Washington, of course, righteously condemned the violence.  There has been the sudden discovery that Mubarak is dictatorial.  Who knew?  From Fox:

CAIRO – Protesters and regime supporters fought in a second day of rock-throwing battles at a central Cairo square while new lawlessness spread around the city. New looting and arson erupted, and gangs of thugs supporting President Hosni Mubarak attacked reporters, foreigners and rights workers while the army rounded up foreign journalists.

As bruised and bandaged protesters danced in victory after forcing back Mubarak loyalists attacking Tahrir Square, the government increasingly spread an image that foreigners were fueling the turmoil and supporting the unprecedented wave of demonstrations demanding the ouster of Mubarak, this country's unquestioned ruler for nearly three decades.

"When there are demonstrations of this size, there will be foreigners who come and take advantage and they have an agenda to raise the energy of the protesters," Vice President Omar Suleiman said in an interview on state TV.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned "in the strongest terms" the pro-government mobs that beat, threatened and intimidated reporters in Cairo.

Attacks on peaceful demonstrators, human rights activists, foreigners and diplomats were "unacceptable under any circumstances," she said.

COMMENT:  Another development today:  Journalists have begun to "examine" the Muslim Brotherhood, and some are starting to rationalize its participation in any new Egyptian government, despite its radical and dark past.  We're being fed the line that the Brotherhood is less extreme than Al Qaeda (gee, thanks), and has forsaken violence.  Of course, its offshoot in Gaza, Hamas, never got that e-mail.

And once again we find silence among "feminist" groups, which should be outraged that the misogynist Brotherhood (no sisterhood there) might come to power.  Once more we find that left-wing politics, not women's rights, form the agenda for many "women's" groups. 

What we're starting to see is what we see in every international crisis – the left is starting to re-organize, and to spout its old line, using new language.  Code Pink is already in Cairo, as is the traveling circus of leftist journalists.  Left-wing and Arabist professors are speaking out, embracing the "multiculturalism" (hah) of the Egyptian revolution. 

Funny, but many of these leftists weren't saying a word about Egyptian dictatorship a mere two weeks ago.  I guess they've spotted a new trend, a new topic for cocktail-party conversation on New York's west side.  Some things never change, including the religion called "the left."

February 3, 2011