It has recently become fashionable to say the US is not expressing a consistent policy on Egypt, that the policy has been changing every day or is noncommittal. This is patently untrue and distorts the very consistent message of support for the pro-democracy movement coming from the White House. Pres. Obama and his administration have consistently supported the just cause of the demonstrators, while urging the Egyptian government to take substantive reforms without delay.

Stability has become a dirty word, because it has been used by the Mubarak regime for the last 30 years and throughout this crisis to justify brutal repression of dissent. Bu the demonstrators themselves have sought to show they are in fact the conscience of the nation, and it is the regime that sows chaos and violence. Hosni Mubarak has sustained an incredibly narrow regime, enriching himself and those close to him, by dividing all possible futures into stability defined by his rule and chaos induced automatically by anything else.

The press have been missing the nuance and complexity that allow for pro-democracy demonstrators to co-opt Mubarak on stability, just as they are missing the nuance and complexity that allow Pres. Barack Obama to take the most responsible position possible —that of supporting the demonstrators without posing as their leader— while gradually shepherding the US-Egyptian diplomatic relationship through the practical and psychological paces of the coming transition.

A recent Onion satire of cable news journalism ended with an announcement that after a commercial break they would follow a police chase from a helicopter “and free associate about what’s going on”. The satire works because it comments not only on cable news methodology, but also on a basic intellectual vice of the human mind: the desire to define circumstances even when the moment does not allow for it.

The world press have been courageous and responsible in telling the story from Cairo, despite great and perhaps mounting personal risk, but those writing at a distance have to be careful not to attempt to achieve the same heightened sense of danger by misreading the political landscape or sensationalizing isolated words or phrases.

The perception that Barack Obama or his administration have been “dithering” is a distortion that stems from media wanting to read the whole story into one or two enigmatic phrases. Such commentary ignores the crux of the problem, that events like this are not decided in one moment or by the words of one individual; they are fluid. The whole of the distortion is of course often propped up by the cynical assumption that the only US government interest in Egypt is Israel and that the interest of that ally can only be served by the US backing hardliners or manipulating political dynamics.

That analysis is reflexive and mirrors the worst distortions of the Mubarak regime, which has spread such rumors in the past to stoke nationalist unity and to neutralize domestic critics, and the political manipulations of those who have relied on such distortions to drive a wedge between Mubarak and his allies abroad. In the current crisis, it appears pro-Mubarak paramilitaries stole several US embassy vehicles, using one to plow through a crowd of civilians the other day, in an attempt to create a distraction and drive a wedge between the demonstrators and the west.

But all of this ignores a fundamental truth about the diplomatic vision of Barack Obama and his administration, which has worked to cultivate a respect for the value of a vibrant and open civil society. On 20 January 2009, in his inaugural address, before a crowd of more than 2 million people gathered to usher in a period of democratic reform, Pres. Obama told the authoritarian regimes of the world that if they would unclench their fists at home, they would find a hand extended abroad.

Many viewed it as a signal specifically to Iran, but the “3D diplomacy” of Sec. Clinton’s State Dept. has shown the Obama administration is working across the world to foster democratic processes, transparency and the rule of law, whether seeking justice for victims of rape in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, supporting the right of the people of South Sudan to escape their attackers, or moving swiftly to answer the call to assist neighbors in quake-ravaged Haiti.

In the case of Egypt, the Obama administration urged the regime from the outset to refrain from violence and worked to expand the space for hearing protesters’ grievances. They prudently took up the just cause, while careful not to look like they were engineering the events taking place. That last point is a vital component of recognizing the genuine right to self-determination of the people of Egypt. Pres. Obama has never wavered on this point.

He has, however, been criticized for acting like a civics professor trying to educate Egypt’s leaders on the process of elective government —a criticism that originated in the halls of Mubarak’s own government, of course—, then criticized for not doing so forcefully enough. The wavering of latest-trend analysis from ideologically varied press with varying degrees of depth of analysis, has led some to see wavering where it has not been shown, and that is a poor foundation on which to base any serious political analysis.

Behind the scenes, we know the Obama administration has been pressuring Mubarak to resign and to turn over power to an interim government, which Obama has said both publicly and privately must be made up of a broad coalition of opposition parties. Impatience with Mubarak has been transferred, however, by some in the media to Obama, as if it were within the reach of the president of the United States simply to dictate a date and hour of departure for the Egyptian leader.

That has, of course, infamously, been tried in other times in other places, and it often works out poorly, because there is no real control there, no direct connection between the will of one nation’s leader and the fate of that of another. There are complexities, and most of all, there are people involved.

To honor the cause of the pro-democracy movement in Tahrir Square, that “embryo” of a free Cairo, as one witness called it, is to honor the right and the capacity of the people who have bravely organized and perpetuated this movement, to guide the process and to get it right.

There is no more firm champion of their cause among world leaders, but as a political leader with a responsibility to foster peace and security as well as the rights of ordinary people, Pres. Obama has a responsibility to behave responsibly and not to frame his role as one of foreign sponsor of a colonial government. His role is to lead by example, to foster civility by calling for and by exhibiting it, to consistently urge that legitimate grievances be heard, and he has done that and the focus, inside Egypt as well as outside, is now on how to best achieve that fundamental political transition.

It is disingenuous at best and propagandist at worst to suggest that what Pres. Obama has been doing over the last two weeks is “dithering” or wandering aimlessly in an unclear policy environment. What needs to be reported, what is most significant about the Obama response to the uprising of the Egyptian people, is how psychologically prepared he and his diplomatic leadership were to deal with the sudden upheaval and how appropriate and on-target has been the response: calling for change, calling for non-violence, demanding prisoners be freed, demanding reform.

Power, if such a thing really exists for any one individual to wield, is not best used when thrown into a fit of bluster or aggression; it is best used when it defers to those best suited to do the best work and to achieve the best result, to the betterment of humankind and to the reduction of harm generally. That approach is difficult to get right and fraught with many pitfalls —like the false accusation that one is not decisive enough—, but it is the right approach.

Pres. Obama has shown both the depth of his character and the heart of his culture, by honoring in the purest and most consistent terms the rights of the Egyptian people and the obligations of those who seek to provide them with a government. He has artfully channeled the vast complexity of world opinion into a sound strategy for peaceful transition, in which the nonviolent pro-democracy movement is allowed to oversee a process of democratization.

Whether people around the president have expressed specific desires to see Mubarak depart sooner or later is immaterial to the thrust of the US message: this is an Egyptian revolution, and Pres. Obama has consistently expressed support for the cause, support for the civility and organization of it, for the ideals and the right to have just grievances addressed by a transition to a new form of government.

We all have an obligation not to privilege the distortions that emerge from a totalitarian state’s manipulations over the facts in evidence. We have an obligation to report the policies as they stand, not as our worst selves would have them appear to be, for the sake of applying pressure or inflaming emotions.

With that said, the Obama administration has a basic responsibility, to the American people, to the ideals of open democracy, and to the people of the region and the world, to keep moving the discourse of officially recognized political transition toward the position of true justice: no Mubarak insiders, no one involved in torture or abuse, allowed to serve in any interim or future government.

There should be prosecutions of those responsible for crimes against the democratic rights of the people of Egypt, but that must be a process decided by the will of the Egyptian people, as measured through a legitimate democratic process. It was 2004, before Spain officially banned fascist demonstrations, 29 years after the death of the dictator Franco and 26 years after the establishment of the current constitution.

In Chile, the last two presidents before Piñera were individuals who had been detained and tortured by the Pinochet regime, but neither one sought revenge for Pinochet’s crimes; instead they threw their weight, and the conscience of their country, fully behind building a legitimate system of due process and letting that system evaluate the options for prosecution based on standing law, prior law and the evidence available.

Both nations are thriving, and both are strong and committed democracies. It will be for the Egyptian people to decide what course they take and how they go about formalizing the end of the dark period of the Mubarak government. So far, the Obama administration has consistently sought to move the discourse of transition toward the end of Mubarak’s rule and the beginning of a real democracy in Egypt; that trend should continue, and should move toward barring all Mubarak insiders involved in abuses from any future office.