Oy, and Morsi was so promising at the start, too.

[No Elephants]

I was very impressed with Morsi when one of his first moves was to enact a freedom of the press law. And one of his second moves was to release from prison a writer who had been imprisoned for criticizing Morsi.

But, Morsi has now gone and imposed almost martial law, with him being the only marshall. (That line wold work better spoken.)

More proof that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Problem is, if you want any kind of society, someone has to have power and anarchy has not provided much in the way of society-building stuff.

Nov 23, 10:53 PM EST

Egypt clashes as president defends his new powers

By MAGGIE MICHAEL and AYA BATRAWY
Associated Press


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CAIRO (AP) -- Supporters and opponents of President Mohammed Morsi clashed Friday in the worst violence since he took office, while he defended a decision to give himself near-absolute power to root out what he called "weevils eating away at the nation of Egypt."

The edicts by Morsi, which were issued Thursday, have turned months of growing polarization into an open battle between his Muslim Brotherhood and liberals who fear a new dictatorship. Some in the opposition, which has been divided and weakened, were now speaking of a sustained street campaign against the man who nearly five months ago became Egypt's first freely elected president.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_EGYPT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-11-23-22-53-38

Fortunately for Morsi, as he morphs from freedom loving President to theocratic dictator, no one pays any attention whatever to liberals or their silly concerns about too much power in one person in government.

[Enthusiast]

1. Governing Egypt would be a daunting task.

There are so many rigid factions and ideologies. And too many centuries of history without democracy for people to understand they must be tolerant of their neighbor's beliefs even if they differ from one's own.

I think the U.S. government is only too happy for Morsi to become a dictator in the tradition of Mubarak. They might even be active in fostering his new power.

[No Elephants]

2. Yes, we like "stability" in the Middle East and democratically elected leaders, if they

are truly elected, don't last a lifetime, like iron fisted kings and shahs and dictators pretending to be elected, as did Saddam Hussein.

And we have trained Egyptians at West Point for a long time, so we are very well connected to their military. During the initial Egyptian revolt, while Mubarak was still in office, our brass was making the rounds of TV talk shows, bragging on how well the Egyptian military was behaving toward the demonstrators, implying that we were responsible for that.

I didn't see many generals talking about that a few months later, when elections that the military had promised failed to materialize and Egyptians started revolting against the Egyptian military.

I don't know if we are in bed with Morsi or not. (BTW, apparently our news people have not decided how to spell his name in English yet. I've seen Morsi, Morsey and Mursi--and that was only this morning.)

[Leopolds Ghost]

3. Disgusting yet typical. Where was that new constitution Egyptians were promised?

How did Morsi get the authority to impose this mysterious "near absolute power"? The US-backed Egyptian military? Presumably we gave him the green light and he felt free to, after cooperating with the US on Gaza.

[formercia]

4. Just another Politician with an agenda.

Whatever it takes to get elected.