Monday, January 31, 2011

Bukra, in sha' Allah...

For the past three or four days, I have woken up and immediately turned on my television. Since Egypt is 8 hours ahead of Waco, the day is already halfway over by the time I roll out of bed. Every day, I have turned on the TV hoping to see news that Mubarak has finally seen the writing on the wall and negotiations are on-going to create an interim government and figure out how to make a peaceful transition to a post-Mubarak Egypt. Every morning, I have sighed, disappointed that this has not yet materialized and thought to myself, “Bukra, in sha’ Allah.” (Tomorrow, God willing).

Egyptians, like most Arabs, have a casual relationship with time. Meetings often start more than an hour after they were planned. Asking any Egyptian to get something done quickly is a risk. Follow up with him or her and ask when the task in question may be accomplished, they will smile serenely and say, “Bukra, in sha’ Allah.” This can be infuriating and frustrating to Americans who are used to punctuality and getting things taken care of quickly, but it is the Egyptian way.

As the protests carry on into a second week, it is becoming increasingly obvious that Hosni Mubarak’s grip on power is slipping. Secretary of State Clinton started talking about a transition to democracy while making the rounds to the Sunday shows. The Egyptian army has announced that it will not fire at demonstrators. Omar Suleiman has announced that the regime wants talks with the opposition and may consider new elections to correct the massive corruption from the November parliamentary elections. Things are looking grim in Mudville.

Bukra. Bukra, in sha’ Allah. The opposition parties have been working hard to organize a million man march on Cairo tomorrow, presumably centered at Tahrir Square which has been Ground Zero for these protests. Is this finally the day? Will this finally get through to Mubarak, the stubborn old coot, that he isn’t welcome in Egypt anymore? I hope so. Not just because the Egyptian people deserve better than Hosni Mubarak, but because Egypt needs to move forward—politically, socially, and perhaps most importantly right now, economically.

Last week, the Egyptian stock market plummeted 20 %. It has been closed the past two days. Schools are closed, universities too. Many stores are closed. Those that aren’t closed, especially supermarkets, are running out of food staples. Banks are closed, and ATMs don’t have any more money in them. The airport in Cairo is packed to the gills with Americans and other foreigners trying to get the hell out of Dodge. The tourist industry—a $10 billion/year enterprise—has come to a screeching halt. Most Egyptians, who live on a wing and a prayer on the best of days, haven’t worked for almost a week. If this keeps up, the Egyptian economy will be in such shambles when all of this over that political stability will be the least of the country’s worries.

Resolution needs to come quickly. If that means Barack Obama needs to fly to Cairo himself and personally escort Mubarak to a private plane that will take him to London where his family is, then so be it. Hop a plane, Mr. President. There won’t be many people in the arrival hall at the Cairo airport. Passing through customs would be a breeze. Okay, so that’s not so feasible, but Obama needs to let it be known to Mubarak that the gig is up. He can save his country. His final act as president could be his best. But to do it, he has to swallow his pride—a bitter pill no doubt.

So for now, I go to bed, knowing that in the morning, I will turn on the TV when I wake up to see what’s going on. Bukra, in sha’ Allah….

Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Muslim Brotherhood Demystified

It seems to me that in all of our collective hand wringing over the situation in Egypt, one of the most commonly asked questions is “What happens if the Muslim Brotherhood gains power?” People are making bold presumptions that tell me that they don’t have a clue about the Brotherhood. It is simply being lumped into some monolithic grouping of “Islamists,” and of course, “Islamist” equates to evil and violent in today’s American parlance. This is an incredibly facile understanding of the Brotherhood based more on fear-mongering than fact. As some of you know, I have been hard at work on my dissertation and I am currently working on revisions to chapter 2 which discusses…you guessed it—the Muslim Brotherhood. I hope I can demystify the Brotherhood and provide some insight into a group which has a long, complicated, and very dynamic history.

The Brotherhood was founded in 1928 in Ismailiyya in the Suez Canal zone by a school teacher named Hasan al-Banna. Egypt in the mid- to late-1920s was secularizing and demanding an end to British interference in its affairs. Concerned that Egypt—the cultural center and one of the religious centers of the Islamic world—was turning away from Islam, al-Banna and the six other men who formed the core group of the Brotherhood were committed to the spread of Islam through preaching and education. Al-Banna’s transfer to Cairo in the early-1930s allowed the Brotherhood to establish a headquarters in the Egyptian capitol. There, the Brotherhood’s relationship with the Egyptian monarchy when from good to mediocre to violent. Because of the king’s cozy relationship with the British, many opposition groups with some degree of nationalist aspirations found themselves at odds with the regime. The Brotherhood was no exception. A series of violent encounters between the regime and members of the Brotherhood’s “Special Apparatus”—its paramilitary group—led to the assassination of al-Banna in 1949.

As the Free Officers began gaining momentum in the years before their revolution, they did so with the assistance of the Brotherhood. However, relations quickly soured between the Brotherhood and Nasser as the Free Officers worked to consolidate their power. In late 1954, a member of the Special Apparatus tried and failed (miserably) to assassinate Nasser. This led to a major roundup of Brotherhood members, and death sentences were handed down for the top leadership of the organization. Many other Muslim Brothers were given lengthy sentences in Egyptian prisons where torture and abuse was the rule, rather than the exception. Many of these men emerged from prison after a general amnesty from Sadat in the early-1970s more radical than when they went in. In general, these guys broke away from the Brotherhood and became the foundation of the more violent groups—the Gama’at and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The Brotherhood itself emerged from its experience in Nasser’s prisons much less willing to tangle with the Egyptian regime, and recommitted itself to the spread of Islam through preaching and social activism, rather than political action.

The Sadat years were pretty good to the Brotherhood. Sadat, the “Believer President,” encouraged Islamic activism on college campuses, allowed the Brotherhood (still an illegal organization) to publish its own newspapers, and freed all of the Brothers who had spent the better part of the last 15 years in jail. However, Sadat’s decision to make peace with Israel was not well received, and members of Islamic Jihad, one of the radical offshoots of the Brotherhood, assassinated him in October 1981. Mubarak largely ignored the Brotherhood in the early-1980s, choosing instead to consolidate his power within the ruling National Democratic Party. In 1984 the Brotherhood was allowed to run for seats in parliament, though members who wished to do so had to appear on the party lists of other parties, since the Brotherhood was still outlawed.

The bigger platform used by the Brotherhood at this point were the professional syndicates. These unions are the bulwark of Egyptian society, and they had long been the victim of financial mismanagement and corruption. The Brotherhood began to gain the majority of the seats in all of the major syndicates (Medical, Journalism, Law, Engineering) and reformed them, offering quality low cost health care, housing assistance, and other services to all of their members—regardless of religion or ideological persuasion. The leadership of the Brotherhood in the syndicates were part of what is known as the “Middle Generation,” those young professionals who came of age during the 1970s and Sadat’s more open stance toward religious activists. The Middle Generation showed a great deal of political savvy in navigating the politics of the syndicates, making alliances with other opposition groups to cement their power in the groups.

Under the Brotherhood, the syndicates also provided social services to the people of Egypt at large. When a strong earthquake hit Cairo in 1992, the Medical Syndicate immediately mobilized to provide triage care to the injured, and the Engineering Syndicate sent teams to investigate the rubble and test the structural integrity of the buildings that were damaged in the quake. The Brotherhood was the driving force behind the disaster response and they were on the scene 48 hours before the state, which humiliated Mubarak and led to some incredibly restrictive laws designed to curtail the strength of the Brotherhood in the syndicates. This also lead to more restrictions on the Brotherhood in the electoral arena. Mubarak began either passing laws or amending the constitution to make it more difficult for the Brotherhood to operate politically.

Even with those restrictions, the Brotherhood has continued to espouse a moderate agenda, issuing a reform initiative in 2004 which demanded the end of military rule, dismantling of the internal security service, free and fair elections, a free press, the ability of opposition parties to organize and run for office, term limits on the presidency, and solidarity between Egypt’s Muslim and Coptic Christian populations. The troubling part of their platform is their stance toward Israel as the Brotherhood wishes to abrogate the Camp David Accords with Israel.

The Brotherhood at this point faces an internal split: the old guard of the organization, those octogenarians who remember all too well what it was like in Nasser’s prisons, are not at all anxious to confront the regime directly. These are the guys in charge, and the General Guide of the Brotherhood, Muhammad Badie, has expressed his desire to move away from the political arena and back to a focus on preaching and social activism. The Middle Generation, who now make up the middle management of the Brotherhood, are much more politically active, having grown up in a much different environment than their elders, and want to be more invested in the political process in Egypt, not less.

The irony of Mubarak’s heavy handed policies against opposition parties is that secular opposition parties have not been able to really sustain any kind of meaningful organization, but the religious nature of the Brotherhood has made it relatively easier for the Brotherhood to grow and organize. After all, it would cause more problems than it would solve for the government to start interfering heavily in the day-to-day operations of Egyptian mosques. So in reality, the regime has set up a de facto two-party system in which the Brotherhood is the only legitimate opposition. That doesn’t mean that Egyptians are completely on board with the Muslim Brotherhood. Many support the Brotherhood today because it is the only real option. However, while the Egyptians are a very religious people by nature, they are not generally radical. Public opinion turning against the radicals in the 1990s played a big role in the defeat of the Gama’at and Islamic Jihad. Should all of this craziness result in regime change and an interim government, it is likely that the Brotherhood would have a large role in the interim government, but much more questionable that they would be able to maintain a majority once other opposition parties were able to organize and mobilize.

I find it doubtful that the Brotherhood, which denounced radicalism of its own accord, would be hospitable to the return of the radicals who have taken up residence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s also important to remember that the primary grievances of the protesters in Egypt are not religious; they are economic and political. Whereas Iranians were upset that the Shah was trying to rid Iran of its religious heritage, Mubarak has done no such thing. Infringements of religious expression are not one of the multitude of problems facing Egypt today, which makes the popular support of an Islamist government less likely.

At some point, the United States must start thinking long-term in the Middle East. Our short-sighted policies in the region for the last six-plus decades have only added to the anti-Western, reactionary tendencies which have led people to terrorism. If we are patient, if we understand that a free, open government in Egypt is more likely to weaken, rather than strengthen, the Muslim Brotherhood in the long run, we could find that democracy in Egypt is much easier to achieve and sustain than it has been in Iraq and that it can be achieved with little or no military intervention on the part of the United States. That would be a steal at twice the price. But it means the United States and her allies (especially Israel) have to be willing to sit down, shut up, and keep their hands to themselves for a little while as things sort themselves out.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

And Now We Come to the Payoff...

Okay, so now that we've been through the background of the mess in Egypt, and you've all suffered through me saying "I told you so," what about now?

First off, let me say that I respectfully disagree with Vice-President Joe Biden. I would call Hosni Mubarak a dictator. What else could you call him? A leader with the occasional nefarious urge? The man's a dictator, and while I understand the rock and hard place the Obama administration is stuck between, surely Biden could have obfuscated a little bit better than that. But I digress...

Two months ago, Hosni Mubarak presided over the most corrupt elections during his 30 year rule. That, by the way, is really saying something, because Mubarak has presided over some pretty corrupt elections. Of the 88 seats contested, the NDP won 84, NDP members running as independents won 3, and the opposition Tagammu party won the only other seat. 87 of 88 seats won by the NDP. So, when Mubarak went on television two days ago promising "reform" including hiring a new cabinet, it's easy to understand how people were struck by the ridiculousness of it all. And if I thought it was ridiculous, imagine how Egyptians felt.

Likewise, appointing Omar Suleiman as his vice-president isn't likely to persuade anyone that Mubarak is serious about reform. Suleiman is a carbon copy of Mubarak, except maybe with a little more blood on his hands. He's an obvious choice if you're Mubarak--low tolerance for Islamists, relationships with the Palestinians and Israelis. He's just not a choice that screams "Reform!"

Lots of people have been asking what Egyptians want. The answer is easy. They want regime change. They hate Mubarak. They want freedom, economic opportunity, and a better life. And they don't feel like they can have those things with Mubarak in power. But the question remains: how and who? The usual suspects include the military, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Mohamed ElBaradei. ElBaradei is the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and has expressed a willingness to lead a transitional government. However, any freely elected government elected now would have a heavy Muslim Brotherhood presence. This is problematic because the Brotherhood is still highly distrustful of Israel and has stated publicly that it thinks Egypt should abrogate its peace treaty with Israel. Ruh-roh...

Whatever issues folks have with the Muslim Brotherhood, I think it's time to take a risk on freedom in Egypt. As Secretary Rice said, we have privileged security over democracy in the Middle East for decades and gotten neither for our trouble. It seems the definition of insanity fits quite well in this instance. Perhaps it's time to try a new strategy. My sense from the Egyptians I met is that they want democracy--one that looks a lot like what we're used to, but still indigenous. If the Brotherhood doesn't uphold the desired standard of freedom or listen to the will of the people, then the people will boot them out of office and start over. It may be a bit painful in the short term, but it will be a better situation for American national security interests in the long term.

Egyptians, like many others in the Middle East, like the idea of America--free press, free speech, free assembly, the right to protest government policies and run for office in free and fair elections. What they don't like is that America doesn't extend those ideals to everyone unless it's politically expedient. The hypocrisy infuriates them. This is a chance to prove them wrong. We owe it to our long term security and to the Egyptian people to give them a chance.

Is This Where I Get to Say I Told You So?



To the title of this post in a moment, but first--read my first post about the situation in Egypt or the people discussed in this one won't make any sense.

I spent a semester in Cairo in the spring of 2009, and I discovered that in many ways, Cairo is a city of excesses. I wrote down a long list of statements about Cairo that all began with "too much," "too little," "too many," or "too few." Here is a sampling of those statements:

Too many people: Cairo's population is estimated to be around 20 million. That's a quarter of the total population of Egypt. This picture is indicative of the type of housing found in most of Cairo--crowded ramshackle apartment buildings that are not terribly structurally sound.

Too many houses: A 1 million unit housing surplus in Cairo

That too few people can afford: The surplus are all in the upscale suburbs of Cairo, subsidized by the government in an attempt to un-crowd downtown Cairo, but they are more expensive than most Egyptians can afford.

Too many homeless: Depending on whose statistics you believe, there are between one and five million people living in the Cities of the Dead, the sprawling mausoleum complexes on the outskirts of the city with no electricity, sewage, etc. Even many of those who can afford to live in apartments often do so in slum housing like Garbage City (to the right). Roughed in electric and sewage are the norm, and living conditions are pretty abysmal. That's the Mosque of Muhammad Ali in the background--perfectly indicative of the chasm between rich and poor in Egypt today.

Too many college graduates: Like any good socialist country, higher education at public universities is heavily subsidized.

Too few jobs: A 1964 law guaranteed civil service jobs to college graduates. Now graduates far outnumber the jobs available, leading to massive underemployment.

Too much power: A very large army and an even larger security force have allowed the National Democratic Party (NDP--the ruling party) to concentrate its power

In the hands of too few: Restrictions on political activity have limited the options for opposition parties to the NDP, and cronyism has led to all of the wealth in Egypt being held in the hands of a small cadre of NDP loyalists.

All of that being said, I told a number of people when I returned from Egypt that it seemed to me that Egypt was on the edge of a cliff and it wouldn't take much for it to fall or be pushed over the edge. One of the worst kept secrets in Egypt is that Hosni Mubarak was grooming his son, Gamal, to take over as president, quite possibly in the elections to take place in September of this year. While I think Gamal could have been just what the doctor ordered, he faces two obstacles. First, he's Hosni's son. The feeling in Egypt was that they fought not that long ago to get rid of the monarchy. They have no desire to invite hereditary succession back to their country. Second, he isn't a member of the old military guard that surrounds his father. These guys are all octogenarians who were in the military and are still imbued with the revolutionary spirit of the Free Officers. They don't trust the suave, young Mubarak who has never served in the military. So the nightmare scenario is this:

Gamal takes over, but his presidency is undermined from within and without. The NDP old guard (including the likes of Omar Suleiman), infuriated by the young upstart, starts to undermine his reign from within the party. Opposition parties also move to undermine him through other means. The baby Mubarak regime comes to an end and a power vacuum emerges which has to be filled. As the best organized opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood steps into that vacuum. With the Brotherhood in power, more radical Islamist groups feel like they can come in from the cold, and return home after more than a decade in exile with al Qaeda and other savory characters. Border crossings with the Gaza Strip go mysteriously unmanned, weapons and other materiel flow freely across the border, Hamas re-radicalizes, and the entire region is thrown in to chaos.

This--the nightmare scenario--is where I get to say I told you so. If I could see this, or some permutation of this, coming 18 months ago, why in God's name does it seem that no one in Washington was prepared for it? And I don't even have security clearance. Give me security clearance, Washington. Give me security clearance and I can go save the world.

Hosni Mu-What? Huh?: A quick primer on the people, places, and events that got us to where we are

A number of my friends have been asking on Facebook for someone to offer them an intelligent opinion of what the heck is going on in Egypt right now. I hope none of you find it presumptuous if I assume that I might be able to offer such an opinion. And even if you do find it presumptuous, I hope you nevertheless read it so that you might have a better understanding of what exactly has been going on in the streets of Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt the last few days. This post will be followed by one which contains the observations I made about the state of affairs in Egypt upon my return from a semester in Cairo 18 months ago. Finally, once we’ve made it through all of that, I’ll sort through the events of the last few days, what I think it means, and what might happen.

But first, some historical background info…

The Free Officers: A group of young Egyptian army officers who were disenfranchised by the Egyptian monarchy’s close relationship with Great Britain and wanted Egyptian independence. Successfully overthrew the monarchy on July 23, 1952.

Gamal Abdul Nasser: (on the left in the picture, Sadat is on the right) One of the leaders of the Free Officers. Assumed the presidency of Egypt in 1954 and remained in the position until his death in 1970.


1967 (Six Day) War: Pre-emptive strike by Israel against its Arab neighbors. Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip (now Palestinian territory) from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank (also Palestinian territory) from Jordan.

Anwar Sadat: Nasser's vice-president, assumed the presidency upon his death. Was the leader of Egypt during the 1973 war and the signing of the Camp David Accords. Assassinated on October 6, 1981 by Islamic fundamentalists.

1973 (Yom Kippur) War: Egypt's attempt to recapture the Sinai Peninsula. Despite initial successes, Egypt began losing ground against the Israelis. Shuttle diplomacy by Kissinger and Nixon led to a brokered cease fire, the beginning of peace talks, and a lot of American aid being sent Egypt's way.

Camp David Accords (1979): Peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, gave Egypt the Sinai Peninsula back.

Hosni Mubarak: Sadat's vice-president, assumed the presidency upon his assassination. Has ruled Egypt ever since.

Emergency law: Enacted by Mubarak after Sadat's assassination, placed restrictions on freedom of speech, press, and the right to assemble. Renewed continuously ever since.

Omar Suleiman: Former head of the Mukhabarat, Egypt's internal security service. A close confidant of Mubarak's and fellow former Army officer. The Mukhabarat is responsible for monitoring domestic political opposition and occasionally makes people disappear if they become too vocal in their criticism of the regime. Suleiman was in charge of the effort to fight terrorism within Egypt in the 1990s and he now serves as the point man for critical issues in the Global War on Terror.

Muslim Brotherhood: The oldest Islamist organization in the world. Founded by Hasan al-Banna in Egypt in 1928. Officially illegal in Egypt, but allowed to operate. Once violently opposed to the regime during Nasser's time, the Brotherhood has renounced violence and has occasionally been allowed to run for parliament.

Syndicates: Professional unions, once corrupt but cleaned up and run efficiently during the 1980s under the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood.

November 18, 1997: 58 tourists and 4 Egyptian tour guides are massacred in Luxor by members of Islamic Jihad. This event turned popular opinion against violent fundamentalists in Egypt and crippled the Egyptian tourism industry for years.

2005: "Arab Spring," a reform initiative spear headed by the Bush administration with the hopes that more democracy, or at least democratization, would lead to less radicalism and anti-American sentiment. In a speech at the American University in Cairo in June of that year, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "For 60 years, the United States pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East -- and we achieved neither." Parliamentary elections in Egypt that year were moderately less corrupt, but voting irregularities and voter intimidation were still widely reported.

Gamal Mubarak: Son of Hosni, a former investment banker in London. The Western-educated Gamal is widely considered to be his father's successor as President.

Thus concludes our quick trip through the last six decades of Egyptian history. Next up, my observations, post-Egypt...if 18 months late.

Saturday, January 08, 2011

Words and Warfare: Thoughts on the Day that Was…

It is still too early to know exactly what the motivations of the shooter who killed six people and injured 13 more, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, at a Tucson, AZ shopping center this morning. We have some YouTube clips, hints of a criminal history, and stories of possible mental instability, but there is nothing yet to nail down his motives.

What we do know is this: people are already starting to place the blame. It’s the fault of politicians, talking heads, and pundits. This is not quite true. The tragic shooting this morning in Arizona was the fault of no one but the man who is the alleged gunman. There is, however, blame to be placed at the feet of politicians, talking heads, and pundits. They did not buy the gun, go to that Safeway, or pull the trigger, but their rhetoric has created an environment so hostile to political opposition that it could push people to commit acts of violence.

Sharron Angle should not be blamed for this shooting because of her talk of “second amendment solutions” during the mid-term elections. Sarah Palin isn’t to blame because she put, among others, Rep. Giffords in her “cross hairs” for her vote for the health care plan. Jesse Kelly isn’t to blame for his campaign event inviting supporters to “get on target” to remove Giffords from office in June in which people were invited to go shoot an M-16 with the candidate. Angle, Palin, and Kelly are guilty of one thing and one thing only—contributing to an atmosphere of hatred, vitriol, and scorn which is starting to border on eerily unstable.

I realize that vitriol in political rhetoric is a fact of life. It waxes and wanes. But I have never seen it tilt so far toward psychosis. We have taken the black-or-white, with-us-or-against-us rhetoric of the last administration and begun applying it to domestic policy in a way that I find completely insulting and unnecessary. If you don’t agree with such and such position, you don’t simply hold a different opinion—you are dangerous, maybe treasonous. You may suddenly find yourself in someone’s “cross hairs.” We are suddenly, inexplicably, unreasonably at war with each other, at war with ourselves. The other side of a political issue is no longer the opposition, but the enemy.

Wake up, people!! We’re at war with al Qaeda. We’re kind of at war with North Korea, Pakistan, and maybe even Iran. Osama bin Laden is the enemy. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is the enemy. Gabrielle Giffords is not the enemy. Barack Obama is not the enemy. Sarah Palin and Sharron Angle and Jesse Kelly aren’t the enemy. Health care, illegal immigration, and economic recovery are not battlefields, merely political hot potatoes. It is possible, even highly likely, for sensible people to disagree on these issues, but still like each other when a debate on the issues is over. By all accounts, Rep. Giffords is proof that this can be possible, as her colleagues on both sides of the aisle have attested all day.

Tonight, in an extraordinarily candid exchange with reporters during a news conference, the sheriff of Pima Co. said, “That may be free speech, but it is not without consequences.” Words have power. Oratory can get people moving. But in what direction? For what purpose? In the service of what cause? Talk of “second amendment solutions” has no place in American political discourse. The Taliban is in need of a “second amendment solution;” American politicians are not. Is it not possible for people to recognize that public servants care deeply about America? Otherwise, there is very little reason for them to open themselves up to this foolishness. Gabrielle Giffords is a patriot. So is Sarah Palin. While people may disagree and disagree strongly with the positions of one or both of these women, war should not be declared on either of them. Neither should be placed in “cross hairs,” political or actual.

“The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight.” Those words, from an episode of the West Wing, ring true this night. What are we to learn from this tragic Saturday? We can disagree with each other politically and do so vociferously without lowering ourselves to our baser inclinations. We are not, or at least we should not be, at war with each other. Politics should not be a blood sport. We should have disputes, debates, and deep conversations, but save the warfare for mutual enemies—mostly foreign, though some domestic, who threaten the peace and tranquility of these United States.

We must recognize the consequences of our words. Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said that the right to free speech does not give one the right to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Those who use the rhetoric of warfare in the relatively mundane world of domestic politics are dangerously close to yelling “Fire!” The stampede that could ensue, if the events of today are not an isolated incident, could be devastating for the United States. Words. Have. Power. Power to heal. Power to hurt. Power to create mayhem. It is our responsibility—yours, mine, Sarah Palin’s, Barack Obama’s—our responsibility to change the tone of political discourse in this country.

“The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight.” My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who were killed, those who were hurt, and everyone who was affected by today’s events. God bless you all.