Mubarak is gone, a second dictator has finally bowed to public pressure in less than a month. It's obvious than history is in the making, but what's fascinating and both frightening and exhilarating is that we have no idea what happens next for Egypt, Tunisia, or the rest of the region. Conservatives in the US are very scared, based on the fear that islamists will take power. Granted the risk is there, albeit apparently small. But to hear these proud Tea Partiers who go on these perpetual rants about freedom and all but say that Obama is a freedom-hating, marxist-nazi-islamist-fascist-socialist baby killer, suddenly argue that Mubarak should have stayed and that democracy is basically not in Muslim DNA would be sickening if it wasn't so damn funny.
The most representative quote is from some pseudo-expert talking head on Fox News who summed up: "We oughta be promoting liberty, and really not democracy". This from the same people who were so proud to be bringing freedom and democracy to Irak (how's that working out for you?). At first I had heard that Mubarak was not like Ben Ali and hadn't pilfered the country's coffers, but apparently his family's net worth is somewhere between $40-70 billion, for a country with a GDP of. So on top of being a dictator (not too gruesome, but still happy to torture, including for the US), he's also a perfect example of Big Government stealing from Joe Taxpayer.
Rachel Maddow did a pretty good segment on the contradictions and the conflicts in the Republican Party between its authoritarian and libertarian tendencies, and I think their reaction to this winter of revolt in the muslim world exemplifies this. Normally they should be happy to see more or less peaceful uprisings in this region, I mean it was one of Bush's goals when he invaded Irak. But their fear of those dangerous ragheads who didn't welcome the US with welcome arms in Irak, and voted for Hamas in Palestine is making their authoritarian bent win the debate, because like most Western countries, they really did like these nice dictators who kept the populace in check.
