2009. >> all presidents react to previous presidents. clearly obama saw the zigzagging of the bush administration going from this highly moralistic pro-democracy rhetoric that was undermind by the iraq war and extraordinary rendition and all of rest, that obama is a much more ironically, considering his reputation for public rhetoric, much more determined to be subtle in public and then use diplomacy to push where pushing is needed. when you see egypt, you did not hear a lot about democracy from obama prior to or even during this crisis. he was very subtle. on the other hand, his diplomat efforts during the crisis were quite concerted and we don't know how this is going to turn out. clearly mubarak wants to prolong this as much as humanly possible. it seems luke a reasonably successful policy where the united states is concerned. remember, we don't have pure motives in this game.