Hosni aims to please

Wow. Congratulations to the relentless people of Kefaya for achieving their first goal. I hope they were prepared for this. Hopefully, I can congratulate the rest of the Egyptians soon as well.

One more thing to add.. but later tonight..
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Here's more.

Regardless of all the skepticism floating about this move, which is certainly well deserved, I still think its a great step (and I'm not an optimist when it comes to this stuff). One, we can't expect to get everything in one day, and two, there's still alot of room to maneuver. I'm sorry to sing along with all the state media on this one, but this is a historic event. Throughout history, when where Egyptians ever able to directly vote for their president/king/khedive/waly/pharaoh? Never, as far as I know.

I think Mubarak is basically trying to shut everyone who's "barking", by throwing a piece of bone to them, but I guess this could lead to more than just a snack (sorry for the analogy, but I'm sure that's how he thinks of it). Seems to me that smart politicians and sincere constitutional law makers can create a big gain out of this new hole that just opened up. Just stay the course, keep the pressure, and keep the sincerity.

No one agrees with me on this, but I think that Mubarak was very smart to take this step. He acted preemptively before things heat up too much against him and he fended off any pressure about reforms for some time to come. He will use this step for his propaganda for a long time, and he'll now be Bush's best friend (even Bush/Republicans will use this for his own propaganda). And at the end of the day, he is sure to have enough gaurantees for himself to secure a safe re-election, resulting in protecting his firm grip on the presidential seat, and by the time Bush is out office, Gamal will be well groomed for his dad's seat. To some extent I'm indifferent if he's re-elected or not for a 5th term. I'd like a change, but I strongly question any alternative president --without enough solid gaurantees to limit his powers and authority-- who would come to screw us up for the fourth time.

I'm not sure if the local demonstrations had much to do with Mubarak's decision, but I'm sure he started to sense the overwhelming pressure heading his way from across the Atlantic. As I said earlier, Hosni aims to please, and no Egyptian authority figure ever aims to please Egyptians. However, my salute still goes to the select Egyptians and the credit I will give is only to those Egyptians who fought for this, not to America. Sorry Bush, you'll have to do much more than just that to get my blessings.