Egypt - the Abyss?

This afternoon we saw and listened to President Mubarak of Egypt talking down to the demonstrators as though they were children.

This is clearly not the case. Whatever happens in Egypt in the short run, Mubarak has the look of being on his last legs.

The times aren't favorable to dictators. The crowds gathering in the square in Cairo were reminiscent of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Velvet Revolution in Prague, the Rose Revolution in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, the Solidarity uprisings in Poland, the Serbian ouster of Milosevich, the Green Revolution in Iran and countless other democratic movements of recent years, both successful and unsuccessful.

Winston Churchill once observed, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." (from a House of Commons speech on Nov. 11, 1947) Mubarak has demonstrated to all and sundry the inherent weakness of authoritarian governments: there is no mechanism for making orderly adjustments to changed circumstances.

Egypt has changed greatly in the past thirty years. The government hasn't.

Whether they win this time or not, the demonstrators are right.