LOOK WHO WANTS TO BE A PRESIDENT – AT 10:01 A.M. ET:  It looks like the leading candidate to be president of Egypt is a certified whack job.  This is getting serious.  From the Washington Times: 

An Islamist who believes that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States were an American conspiracy is the front-runner in Egypt’s presidential race, a new poll shows.

Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, formerly a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, led the field of 13 candidates with 32 percent of the vote in a survey released Monday by the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

Mr. Abolfotoh expressed his views on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in an interview last year with Egypt scholar Eric Trager.

Mr. Trager, now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, quoted Mr. Abolfotoh as saying:

“It was too big an operation …. They [the United States] didn’t bring this crime before the U.S. justice system until now. Why? Because it’s part of a conspiracy.”

Egyptians will vote Wednesday and Thursday in their first presidential election since the toppling of Hosni Mubarak last year. If none of the candidates wins a majority, the two top vote-getters will compete in a runoff next month.

A ‘liberal Islamist’?

The 61-year-old Mr. Abolfotoh, who left the Brotherhood last year, has been dubbed a “liberal Islamist” by some reporters partly because he said he believes that a Christian should be able to run for president - a view that put him at odds with the Brotherhood’s leadership.

In a recent Egyptian television interview, Mr. Abolfotoh qualified that position. He said that, while parties are free to nominate whomever they want, Egypt “cannot have a president who does not have an Islamist orientation.”

The Washington Institute’s Mr. Trager said that “the notion that Abolfotoh is some kind of progressive is farcical.”

“He is a longtime Muslim Brother, a founder of the Islamist student movements of the 1970s, and somebody who still calls for implementing the Shariah,” he said. “His falling out with the Brotherhood was over differences regarding strategy and internal administration, not ideology.”

Mr. Abolfotoh has been endorsed by al-Gama’a al-Islamiya, a jihadist group the State Department designated as a terrorist organization.

“Given that he was endorsed by a terrorist organization and has called the peace treaty with Israel a national-security threat, it is highly unlikely that Egypt’s foreign-policy will remain friendly to U.S. interests if he’s elected,” Mr. Trager added.

COMMENT:  Isn't this wonderful?  Why, it's the Arab spring!  The warmth of the air itself excites us.  Looks like we may have a 9-11 truther as president of Egypt and a Holocaust denier as president of Iran.  What wonderful progress we're making in American foreign policy.

Dan Henninger recently wrote that the Democratic Party's left has abandoned human rights.  He is correct...to the extent that the left ever actually cared about human rights.  Today we find most of the true champions of human rights on the thoughtful right.  Obama, clearly a member of the Democratic left, has unleashed his foreign policy on the world – a policy that included pushing Hosni Mubarak out of power in Egypt – and the result has been a growth of extremism in a number of countries.

We know, from material sent to us by reader Jacqueline Reckseit, that the Muslim vote in France was decisive in putting the new socialist government in power, and defeating the pro-American president, Nicolas Sarkozy.  The Muslim vote, which often harbors extremist views, is growing dramatically in many European countries, and even in Britain. 

History doesn't repeat itself.  It's the psychology of history that repeats itself.  Once again too many in the West are adopting the appeasement psychology of the 1930s.  Just one more concession will bring peace.  Just one more act of "understanding" the Nazis, or, today, the Islamists, will end the friction brought about by, check one, 1) the Jews, 2) the bigots, 3) the warmongers, 4) the industrial-military complex, 5) the flag wavers. 

Another reason why this election is so critical to this country's future.

May 22, 2012