Pawlenty Slams Obama Egypt Response as 'Nearly Incoherent'

WASHINGTON, Feb 12, 2011— -- Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty slammed the Obama administration's response to protests in Egypt over the last two and half weeks in an interview with ABC News on "This Week with Christiane Amanpour." He compared the White House response to the "Tower of Babel" and said the mixed messages added up to something "nearly incoherent."

During the interview Amanpour asked the potential Republican President candidate, "What would you have done in the very first instance when all of this started?"

"First of all," Pawlenty said, "before [Obama's] administration spoke like a tower of Babel, with multiple voices saying multiple things, they should have had one message that was clear and consistent and measured and appropriate. Instead you had the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the national intelligence director going off in different directions, saying nearly incoherent things, at least inconsistent things."

"It's really important the United States of America speak with one voice. So, first of all, get your own team on the same page. That's lesson number one in a crisis: communicate clearly. Number two: we have to articulate, when we have that kind of an uncertain crisis unfolding, what our principles are," the former governor said. "One, we don't want a radical Islamic result. Two, we favor democracy. And President Mubarak and Suleiman or anyone else who may be purporting to be leading the nation needs to embrace those principles," he added.

Amanpour then asked Pawlenty what actions the Egyptian military, now in charge of the country, could take to make him confident that they would hold democratic elections.

"We'd look to them to see a plan and a timetable with specific commitments, but I think none of this is really going to be reliable or trustworthy unless they're willing to embed it into constitutional, permanent changes. I think that's an important measure of how they're going to proceed and whether their beliefs and statements are going to be reliable," Pawlenty said.