Two presidents try to contain the damage

First an uninspired Mubarak, who promises ill-defined reforms and fires the government but sees no problems in the regime and only chaos in the demonstrations (someone sell him a teleprompter please!):

Then an almost animated Obama, who favors universal human rights, peaceful demonstrations and concrete reforms (he didn’t use a teleprompter either, but he is better at it!):

Nothing Mubarak said suggested to me that he understood what real reform meant, and quite a bit of it suggested a willingness to crack down. Obama did not sound as if he wanted to put up with another day like today, when the Egyptian security forces were clearly unleashed and encouraged to trash the demonstrators.