Obama rep met with Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo this week but it's OK because he didn't meet with Salafists-Reuters

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Reuters is anxious to deflect possible objection to a US/Muslim Brotherhood meeting so in the first sentence says "but" Obama's rep chose NOT to see a more hardline Islamist group.

1/12/12, "Top US official meets Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood," Reuters

"The number two official in the U.S. State Department met with a leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday

• but

chose not to see a more hardline Islamist group that has also fared well in Egypt's first free legislative vote in decades.

Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns met Mohamed Morsi, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), in Washington's highest level outreach to the Islamist group as part of a series of meetings with Egyptian political figures in Cairo, the State Department said....

Burns, the principal deputy to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is the highest-level U.S. official to meet with Muslim Brotherhood officials since Washington tweaked a long-standing ban on formal contacts with the Islamist group earlier this year.

Islamists including the Muslim Brotherhood hope to cement control over Egypt's lower house of parliament as a final phase of voting began on Tuesday.

Banned under former President Hosni Mubarak, a strong U.S. ally, the Brotherhood has exploited a well-organized support base and projects it will take some 41 percent of the 498 elected seats in the assembly's lower house.

(Spokesperson) Nuland said Burns did not meet hardline Salafists, which have also logged strong showings in early rounds of voting and espouse an even more conservative view of Islam that some have compared to Afghanistan's Taliban....

Burns' talks with Brotherhood representatives follows Washington's decision last year to drop a ban on formal meetings with the group in recognition of its political role in Egypt's democratic transformation."...

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Ed. note: Reuters is great. Instead of saying Salafists are as bad or worse than the Taliban, Reuters says they're more "conservative." Salafists, Reuters says, "espouse an even more conservative view of Islam that some have compared to Afghanistan's Taliban." Language kills.

via Atlas Shrugs