Envoy Who Said Mubarak Should Stay Is Linked To Mubarak

Oops!

Robert Fisk over at The Independent points out that we've apparently outsourced our diplomacy to a guy who has ties with the Mubarak regime. Envoy Frank Wisner caused a kerfuffle when he said "President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical: it's his opportunity to write his own legacy." This forced the Obama administration to do even more backtracking and damage control than they were already doing.

Wisner has worked for law firm Patton Boggs for nearly two years. Patton Boggs works for Egypt - in particular the part of Egypt that would really, really like to stay in power. As researcher Nicholas Noe notes:

"The key problem with Wisner being sent to Cairo at the behest of Hillary," he says, "is the conflict-of-interest aspect... More than this, the idea that the US is now subcontracting or 'privatising' crisis management is another problem. Do the US lack diplomats?

"Even in past examples where presidents have sent someone 'respected' or 'close' to a foreign leader in order to lubricate an exit," Mr Noe adds, "the envoys in question were not actually paid by the leader they were supposed to squeeze out!"

So, we screwed up the whole Egypt thing again. No idea what "legacy" we're hoping for Mubarak to write  but the legacy we're currently writing is that we're just not too good at the diplomacy thing anymore. I'm not sure at what point we stop getting egg on our face, but we just put more egg on our face.

Also, I neither know who won the Superbowl, nor do I care.

via The Independent.