There's something more than a little off-putting about someone once described as America's "most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights," arguing vigorously against those same rights of free expression and self-determination for another people. That he does so later by invoking Godwin's law when he states as a fear of democracy emerging in Egypt with "The people of Germany chose Adolph Hitler in 1932 by democratic means" is just sickening. [And historically false anyway, as Hindenburg won the 1932 German election.]

Dershowitz's false equivalence of sacrificing America's "only reliable ally in the middle east" for one who would never be more than a "fairweather friend" is an embarrassing straw man argument where he points as one thing only as possible, or at least likely, as a given result. That somehow supporting Egypt's move towards real democracy would always be antithetical to our and Israel's goals.

Mona Eltahawy was blunt in her assessment of the manure Dershowitz was spewing, calling him "hypocritical and alarmist". "You're talking nonsense," she said.

David Gergen was given the last word which he used to back up Dershowitz's call to maintain the status quo as in the best interests of the United States, stability above all else, and especially not the messy and unpredictable nature of democracy. Dershowitz nodded approvingly, content in his own sanctimony.