My Birthday with Bassem Youssef

I wish.

I did, however, pretty much spend it with my focus on the man who has been through the political wringer. What's so great is that he did it with open arms and with as much flair as possible.



Youssef is a talk show icon, who hosts what is easily the most popular and satirical program on Egyptian TV, 'El Bernameg.' He is a product of a time in Egypt when everybody feels they have the right to call attention to the failings of their government and force it to be held accountable. It was a government put in power by the people, and they want it to remember who it serves.

Youssef does a pretty good job of making sure that happens in the most entertaining way possible.


They call him Egypt's "Jon Stewart," and an arrest warrant was issued late last month for the man they say is guilty of insulting the President and of blasphemy (kind of a trend in modern Egyptian history).

The ACTUAL Jon Stewart did a number on the incident, and because we like to make it easy on people, he had a lot of material to use.

This is one of the more impressive embarrassments we've suffered so far. (Although the list is pretty long, and has the competitive likes of a Prime Minister playing Smurf Village via his professional twitter account). It has a lot to do with a lead prosecutor who was hired by the new government, asked to leave by the judiciary authority - who should be in charge of the decision in the first place - and refused to do so with about as much dignity as you can expect from a story like this.

It was his questionable decision to issue the warrant for such a deeply supported media figure.

Luckily, no real damage was done. When Youssef heard about the warrant, he walked straight up to their offices, sat through a ridiculous interview, paid an unnecessary bail, and went home to start on a brand new episode of 'El Bernameg.'

That played the Friday of my birthday do, and yes, we sat around the TV and watched.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's, and with a biased new election law on the table and the increasingly poor handling of building Muslim/Christian tension, I have high expectations.

I don't think anyone's ever really disappointed.