Egyptian President Mursi to Field Marshal Tantawi: "You are fired !"

[Mr. Morden]

Looks like Tantawi and the military may have gone along with this to escape prosecution:

http://world.time.com/2012/08/12/has-egypts-muslim-brotherhood-staged-a-coup-against-the-military/

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Also, can someone explain what the current state of play is on the reinstatement of parliament?  The courts dissolved parliament, because they said there was a constitutional problem with how the election was conducted, and SCAF then claimed legislative powers for itself until a new parliament is elected.  Morsi then tried to reinstate them, but they only met for one day to formally lodge a complaint to the judiciary about being reinstated, and I'm not sure what the state of play is there.  According to that Time article, Morsi is now claiming legislative powers for himself, and also taking control of the constitutional committee:

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So yes, Morsi won the presidential election, and I'm glad that he's taking power away from the generals, but is he just doing it to grant himself dictatorial powers, with no checks from other branches of government?

[Mr. Morden]

Tantawi's really going? I honestly thought this was going to be a "Mister Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it" case.

Yes, Tantawi's really going:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/12/egyptian-defence-chief-ousted-shakeup?newsfeed=true

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Now the battle will be between the Muslim Brotherhood and the courts.  The constitutional court will probably call most of the constitutional decrees Morsi is issuing to be illegal.

[Mr. Morden]

This is tough to assess, because it looks like Morsi has basically grabbed absolute power for himself on an interim basis until a new constitution and new parliament are in place.  The question is how he's going to use that power.  Is he actually going to try to work with secular liberals to write the new constitution and establish the new system, or shut them out of the game?

"Did Egypt's President Just Make Himself a Dictator?"

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[Mr. Morden]

Stuff like this is also less than encouraging:

Egypt TV boss, journalist to be tried for insulting Morsi