A Lesson from Egypt for American Politics: A wise president puts into effect policies that work. A smart president sees his policies aren’t working and changes them

Barry Rubin

An Egyptian president says the Israelis ate my homework

This American president says that the Japanese earthquake ate my economy

...."If external saboteurs are responsible for a problem, nothing has to be done to fix it. In other words, all you have to do is wipe the offenders’ country off the map and the problem would go away. You don’t need to improve agricultural inspections or to teach Egyptian Muslims to respect Christians; you just have to make a speech denouncing the “real enemy.”"

....

"This American president says that the Japanese earthquake ate my economy. And he blames the local equivalent of Zionist imperialist running dogs such as Bush, the Republican minority in Congress, ATMs, Arab revolts, the Japanese earthquake, the Internet, workers manufacturing too many corporate jets, taxes being too low, bad luck, and “headwinds” because his policies aren’t working and then doubles down on the aforementioned policies. Then his supporters call critics greedy racists for not supporting the failed policies.

"As I said earlier, when a country is unable to discuss its problems honestly and intelligently, it is unable to fix its problems." Emphasis added.
....

"And this most anti-liberal form of scapegoating and bigotry against the “other” is now supposed to be what liberalism is? No, it has more in common with how Arab dictatorships are governed."