Egypt's now former dictator Hosni Mubarak Image via WikipediaFrom Denny: Guess who's literally no longer in the picture in Egypt these days? Take a look to the right for that's a ghost you are viewing. The late night comics were not at a shortage of words - or opinions - about the unfolding news coverage streaming in live all day and night long in America for 18 days. We all watched with fascination the witnessing of a new nation being birthed. Egypt is thousands of years old, had monarchies and dictators yet never before a chance at democracy until now.
It will be interesting to watch the struggles ahead as various factions wrestle for power. The same thing happened after our own American Revolution. Americans seem to think it was so easy when it was not. Most of our founding fathers were hounded so much for years that they ended up penniless after the British crown was done with them for daring to rise against it.
What's more weird is that even George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were off to Europe, hoping to enlist an heirless aristocrat of the Stewart (or is it Stuart?) family line to be America's King. Yeah, scary, isn't it? Fortunately, said possible king had the good sense to turn down their offer. He thought they should press ahead and forge a new way of government that was truly of the people - including their new leader. Even the Founding Fathers really didn't know how to break their mindset and conditioning to the monarchy and install a President. Egypt may wrestle with the same issues our ancestors did. We are still wrestling. Democracy is messy but worth the fight.
