the administration is saying more than it said publicly yesterday. the words orderly transition, the message from secretary clinton is the right one. unfortunately it took them about a week to get there. and the result is that people on the streets didn't really feel the united states was on the side of democracy. they got to the right place but it took them so long to get there. remember, a week ago, they were saying mubarak's government is stable. so the key is, behind the scenes for the administration to come up with either an envoy or message to president mubarak that makes clear as long as he says the words i'm leaving power, i'm going to step down, he can probably get a few months out of this. remember, there's an election in september. >> right. >> it's not that hard to get us from here to there in a peaceful, orderly way. >> andrea mitchell is, of course, nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent. andrea, you've been working this story around the clock over the past week.