The administration has now clarified its position on Egypt:

• (1) "President Mubarak is not a dictator and he should stay in office..." according to Vice President Biden

• (2) "... but he needs to step down immediately..." according to Secretary Clinton

• (3) "... and remain President to ensure stability ..." according to Special Envoy Frank Wisner

• (4) "... and he should have resigned as President yesterday ..." according to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

• (5) "... paving the way to elections that must be held within three months ..." according to senior officials

• (6) "... unless he waits till September, which is fine by us..." according to the State Department.

Got that? The official U.S. position is that Mubarak needs to go immediately, he needs to stay indefinitely, he needs to stay for a bit and then go, he needs to stay for a bit longer then go sooner rather than later, unless he decides to stay until September because he is standing in the way of the full bloom of a new Egyptian democracy, unless it turns out that he is all that stands between us and a Muslim Brotherhood takeover, because the Muslim Brotherhood are a radical theocratic tyranny in waiting, unless of course it turns out that they are reasonable moderate types we should have been talking to all along. So that's the official Obama position verbatim from WhiteHouse.gov.

If you're making that critical 3:00 AM call to the oval office and you get voicemail press buttons #1 through #6 for whichever Obama position on Egypt suits you best.

Paul Krugman in today's New York Times says the Egyptian riots are due to climate change. Seriously. Seriously.

By Mark Steyn