Nick Kristof: "After a wishy-washy stage, President Obama got it pitch-perfect on Friday when he spoke after the fall of Mr. Mubarak.  He forthrightly backed people power, while making clear that the future is for Egyptians to decide. Let's hope that reflects a new start not only for Egypt but also for American policy toward the Arab world."

The monologue of O'Reilly and Obama was the flattest and most boring in recent memory.

According to experts who have interacted with the White House, the tactic is favored by a group of foreign policy advisors including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, national security advisor Thomas Donilon and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who worry about regional stability and want to reassure other Middle East governments that the U.S. will not abandon an important and longtime ally.

But that position has been harder to defend as Suleiman and other Mubarak allies appeared to dig in, refusing the administration's entreaties to undertake swift reforms such as scrapping the country's longstanding state of emergency. On Wednesday, Suleiman warned ominously of a coup unless the unrest ended. That prompted White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to fire back that the Egyptians should "expand the size and scope of the discussions and the negotiations and to take many of the steps that we outlined yesterday -- one of which is lifting the emergency law."

Suleiman's behavior reinforced the arguments of another camp inside the Obama administration, including National Security Council members Ben Rhodes and Samantha Power, which contends that if President Obama appears to side with the remnants of Mubarak's discredited regime, he risks being seen as complicit in stifling a pro-democracy movement.