LOOK, IT'S ONLY A CONSTITUTION – AT 8:23 A.M. ET:  I mean it's not as if they were doing something important, like drawing up a contract for a furnace.  So Egypt is getting a new constitution, is it?  But there are the usual Mideast hitches.  From AP:

CAIRO (AP) — An Islamist-dominated panel has approved a draft constitution for Egypt without the participation of liberal and Christian members.

Who needs pesky people with 21st-century ideas?

Members finished voting on all 234 articles individually, passing all largely by consensus, in a marathon 16-hour session that ended just after sunrise Friday.

The panel’s rushed passage of the charter before a court ruling Sunday that could dissolve their panel is likely to further inflame a clash between Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and the largely secular opposition. The draft now goes to Morsi, who is expected to call for a referendum within 30 days.

The move advances a charter with an Islamist bent that rights experts say could give Muslim clerics oversight over legislation and bring restrictions on freedom of speech, women’s rights and other liberties.

Hey, no problem.  The leftists in the West will still support it, and our State Department will say that it's still studying the draft.

COMMENT:  Other news sources tell us that the document is already being called the "Islamic constitution," in a country whose "Arab spring" featured demonstrators looking for a more modern, more democratic vision.  I don't get the feeling that the document the Islamic bigshots produced will be much like the one written in Philadelphia more than two hundred years ago.

But, hey, who are we to judge other cultures? 

We'd better start judging.

November 30,  2012