Open Thread: Media Get It Wrong Again as Secular Egyptian Parties Fail

December 6th, 2011 9:34 AM

After what seemed like a successful overthrow of the Egyptian government during the Arab Spring, giving way for a possibly freer and more democratic government, experts from the Obama administration to academia to media commentators were all proclaiming the students who overthrew Hosni Mubarak's regime would be the same ones to bring the democratic values to a new Egyptian government. Many conservative journalists had long feared the opposite, noting that the power vacuum could also give rise to radical Islamic politics, especially in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now that the election results are partially in, it seems that the conservative journalists were correct. Check out an election summary after the break, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

After cheering for the downfall of Mubarak, none of the American supporters believed the Muslim Brotherhood could cause any damage, seeing them as a weak group who had merely been propped up to appear as oppositional to Mubarak's government. Now that some of the votes have been tallied, as explained by Tony Blankley in the Washington Times, it appears conservative journalists were right all along:

The early returns are in. (There are still two more rounds of voting in 18 of the country’s 27 provinces over the next month.) The Islamists look likely to get 65 percent 70 percent of the eventual vote. According to the High Election Commission, the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party got about 36 percent, while the Salafist Nour Party got a stunning 25 percent. The Salafists are the hysterical wing of the fundamentally reactionary general Muslim population, while the Brotherhood is merely the fanatical wing.

The grand total for all the parties that, by the ancient cultural standards of Pharaonic Egypt, are considered the liberal-secular bloc - the makers of the glorious Arab Spring democracy was, wait for it - 13 percent. I predict that if any of them try to practice any of that liberal-secular stuff in public, either the military eventually will lock them up or the Salafists eventually will beat them up or kill them on the street. Adios, liberal-secular Egypt, we hardly new ya. Hello, kill the Coptic Christians and the Jews.

Since the liberal media have realized they were wrong, they are trying to label the Muslim Brotherhood as moderate, despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood's platform includes aiding the "Palestinian resistance against the Zionist usurpers of their homeland" and states "death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations," neither of which are moderate by any stretch.

Are you surprised by the election results and the way the media are spinning the results?