Elliot Abrams doesn't have time to advise Obama on Egypt

[Enrique]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/

(...)

Elliott Abrams, the former Bush White House Middle East/democracy advisor, was invited but couldn't go. "I had other commitments I did not think I could fairly cancel at such short notice," Abrams told POLITICO. While another colleague tried to soften Abrams's implication he had better things to do than offer counsel to the White House, saying he thought he was out of town, in fact Abrams said he had already committed to speak to the AJC along with Jordanian former diplomat Marwan Muasher.

(...)

[annabanana]

1. I guess he thinks it's better for him to just, you know. .

lay low.. (with his record and all)

[Catherina]

2. REc'd. No worries. He was well represented by the other neocons Obama invited

George Washington University Middle East expert and Foreign Policy.com Middle East channel editor Marc Lynch; the National Security Network's Joel Rubin, a former State Department Egypt desk officer; the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Michele Dunne, a former NSC and State Department Policy Planning and Egypt embassy official who co-chair a bipartisan working group on Egypt); Council on Foreign Relations's Egypt expert Steve Cook; the New America Foundation's Steve Clemons; Center for American Progress Middle East expert Brian Katulis, and former U.S. Amb. to Israel Martin Indyk, now with the Brookings Institution and an advisor to George Mitchell.

Elliott Abrams, the former Bush White House Middle East/democracy advisor, was invited but couldn't go. "I had other commitments I did not think I could fairly cancel at such short notice," Abrams told POLITICO. While another colleague tried to soften Abrams's implication he had better things to do than offer counsel to the White House, saying he thought he was out of town, in fact Abrams said he had already committed to speak to the AJC along with Jordanian former diplomat Marwan Muasher.

The Brookings Institution's Robert Kagan, who co-chairs the Egypt working group, wanted to go but couldn't get a flight back from California in time to make it.

....

http://www.nsnetwork.org/node/1849

[gratuitous]

3. Too bad one of those commitments doesn't include sitting in prison

But no, Daddy Bush issued a pardon to Elliott in the dead of night on Christmas Eve 1992, just before Lawrence Walsh would have begun the trial that might have put the lie to Bush's claim that he was "out of the loop" during the Iran/contra Affair. I wonder if anyone at Politico even remembers that?

[RufusTFirefly]

4. Perhaps he's in California, getting together with some friends