I’m answering my own question-—I did a little research and think I know the context of this quote. On an EGYPTIAN website posted by the president of Alexandria University, there is a compilation of quotes , obviously all delivered in the heady first days of the “Arab Spring”-—
quotes included from President of Italy, other official in Europe,etc, and of course Obama. They were all in the vein
of “We are all Egyptians today”, and “Way to go EGYPT! You are making history AGAIN!” So this could well be something Obama could easily slither out of—other voices from the “respectable West” chimed in just as he did.Obama surrogates have to do nothing other than to put it in this context, and claim that what Obama meant was to extoll the virtues of free speech and expression shown by large numbers of Egyptian youth in those early days of the Arab Spring.
I find it hard to believe this quote is for real
Austrian President Heinz Fischer : “The people of Egypt are the greatest people on earth, and they deserve a Nobel Prize for Peace”.
There is no date on this page to know when it was posted.
http://www.alexu.edu.eg/?q=node/2069
I wonder is someone made up a bunch of stuff and then it has become “fact”.