
CNN’s Ben Wedeman has filed this dispatch from Cairo, Egypt:
“I woke up at 6:15 a.m, just minutes before CNN called the election for President Barack Obama, in my hotel room overlooking Tahrir Square to find nothing out of the ordinary. Early morning Cairo was hazy, slowly waking up, just a few cars in the street.
Cairenes like to say their's is a city that never sleeps, but 6:15 a.m. is where you discover, well, even this sleepless city needs a few hours of rest. After hearing Wolf Blitzer give the details, a banner appeared at the bottom of my screen, which was tuned into Egyptian Channel 1. It wasn't until 7 a.m. that an anchor and a reporter (on the phone from Washington, D.C.) discussed the news.
In the news studio, another journalist noted, as is well known here, that most Egyptians preferred President Barack Obama over Mitt Romney because, in his words, "the Republican Party is hardline on the Palestinians."
He went on to note that the US elections do underscore that the United States "is a country of institutions," where strategic interests don't change with the change of administrations.”