It Takes A Cartoonist

David Horsey has done a wonderful job in his latest column in explicating some rather complex issues in a way which somehow has eluded the rest of the mainstream media.

There seems to be one thing that unites all the demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, from the young secular liberals who are jubilant that Egypt’s military has deposed President Mohamed Morsi to the Islamic militants who demand that he be reinstated: they all are furious with President Barack Obama and the United States of America.

On the one hand, the anti-Morsi crowds think Obama gave too much support to Morsi. On the other, the pro-Morsi marchers are calling Obama a hypocrite for giving lip service to democracy while doing nothing in the face of the military coup that overthrew Morsi’s democratically elected government.

As always, it is hard for the U.S. to get it right in the Arab world. ...

The reality, though, is that the authoritarian actions of the Morsi government were proving detrimental to the long-term prospects for permanent democracy in Egypt. After years of waiting for their chance, Morsi and his comrades in the Muslim Brotherhood were unable to restrain themselves from pushing too quickly toward the Islamic state they want. Perhaps just as damaging, they also proved themselves to be incompetent stewards of government.

Millions of protesters filled the streets to reject the slide away from democracy and toward theocratic rule. There was no vote and no election, but the will of the people was being expressed. That, too, is democracy and Morsi refused to respond to that expression, so the military stepped in.   [Emphasis added]

There.  Was that so hard?

Nicely done, David.  Now, if only White House spokespeople could be so direct and clear in their explanations and the traditional media could shake such explanations out of them to begin with and then actually print the story, we might be a better informed nation.