As if Barack Obama hadn’t spent the last week making enough wrong guesses on Egypt, he and his administration managed to outdo themselves yesterday. When work came out that Hosni Mubarak had scheduled an address that evening, Obama tried to contain himself, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it:

“We are following today’s events in Egypt very closely,” said Mr. Obama. “We’ll have more to say as this plays out. But what is absolutely clear is that we are witnessing history unfold. It’s a moment of transformation that’s taking place because the people of Egypt are calling for change.”

Leon Panetta told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that Mubarak was about to resign (based on media reports), while DNI James Clapper tried spinning the Muslim Brotherhood as a “largely secular” organization, an assertion that was so erroneous that Clapper’s office had to issue a “clarification” later in the day. But that only was the appetizer to the feast of crow; Mubarak later served the main course:

The Obama administration struggled Thursday to keep pace with events in Egypt and retool its strategy there after a defiant President Hosni Mubarak lashed out at what he described as foreign intervention.

Rather than delivering the resignation that had been widely expected, Mubarak used a televised address to present himself as a mediator in Egypt’s national drama. He also cast the Obama administration as an unwanted interloper in a political reform process that he insisted he would see through as head of state.

Foreign intervention in Egypt is “shameful,” Mubarak said, adding that he would never accept it, “whatever the source might be or whatever the context it came in.”

And why did Mubarak feel strong enough to defiantly hold onto power?

“The message out of Egypt refusing foreign diktats is pretty clear – and totally aimed at the United States,” said Jon B. Alterman, a senior fellow and director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “That gets Mubarak credit at home.”

“One of the things that I think is often forgotten is that all of the Egyptians believe they are acting as patriots,” Alterman continued. “And it’s hard for the United States to appear more patriotic than even the most hated Egyptian.”

Obama made it possible for Mubarak to appeal to the patriotism of Egyptians by painting Obama and the US as interfering and disloyal.  And that really takes some doing.

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