WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Obama runs riot with facts on ‘ally’ Egypt.

Perhaps President Fact-Based should have toned down the sanctimony. That evening, in an interview with Jose Diaz-Balart, of the Spanish-language network Telemundo, Obama was asked whether Egypt was an ally of the United States. “I don’t think that we would consider them an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy,” Obama responded.

This comment was so incredible that NBC foreign correspondent Richard Engel later commented that he “almost had to sit down” when he heard it. Egypt, the 16th largest nation on Earth and by far the largest in the Arab world, was designated a non-NATO ally by Congress in 1989, along with other important countries like Israel, Japan and Australia. Not at any point during the Arab Spring did the U.S. government hint at any change in that status. And Obama has strenuously resisted the idea, promoted by some Republicans, of canceling the $1.5 billion foreign aid package that the U.S. furnishes to Egypt annually. No wonder jaws dropped when Obama dropped this bombshell in a casual news interview on Spanish-language television.

Remember when they told us he was smart and Sarah Palin was dumb?