Pawlenty: Obama 'nearly incoherent' on Egypt

As a new day dawned on Egypt, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty slammed President Obama's handling of the largely peaceful revolution, faulting the White House for its "nearly incoherent" pronouncements on events. Appearing Sunday on ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour, Pawlenty spoke of a "Tower of Babel" (or did he say babble?) of conflicting statements from a notably cautions Obama administration trying to keep abreast of developments during the 18-day uprising. Pawlenty, coming off of a sixth-place finish in a conservative presidential straw poll on Saturday, also faulted the administration for cutting aid to democracy organizations in Egypt, and for failing to take a strong public stand against the danger of a takeover by the influential Muslim Brotherhood (a prospect that was surprisingly downplayed by Israeli Foreign Minister Ehud Barak earlier in the show). Some analysts wonder whether a public condemnation from the President of the United States would help or hurt the Brotherhood in Egypt. But the criticism is an echo of the GOP attack line on Obama during Iran's would-be "velvet" revolution (to which Israel's Barak saw no parallel). Most interesting from a home-town perspective: How Pawlenty often returns to a leadership theme laid out in his book, "Courage to Stand," which pivots on the traumatic hours after the 35W bridge collapse. As Minnesota governor, relying on faulty reports from his transportation bureaucracy, he initially reported - erroneously by his own account - that there had been no inspection issues with the bridge. The lesson learned, for Pawlenty, was get your script together before you go public. Translated into foreign policy, he thinks Obama messed up on Egypt. "It's really important that the United States of America speak with one voice," the potential 2012 candidate told Amanpour. "Get your own team on the same page. That's lesson No. 1 in a crisis."