“No longer can we as a nation look the other way when ‘stable’ dictators sacrifice human rights and freedoms in the name of security,” Feingold said in statement. “This is a recipe for failure. The United States must engage with the people of Egypt to understand the hopes they have for their country, and then the U.S. can play a constructive role in helping Egypt achieve its goals.”

Serious question, though: when was the last time the Republican nominee refused to endorse anyone (including his veep pick) the next time around?

As I said last week, The Party Line is my attempt to take the ideas and thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head all week, and use them to kick off a weekend’s worth of conversation, and,well, my thoughts were a little extra bouncy today. There was just so much this week, and so much to say about Egypt all by itself, that I had a hard time editing my thoughts. . . but stick with me because, as you can see by the tags, I also talk about sex.

The masses are gathering in Tahrir Square for the “Day of Departure,” with the goal of getting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to leave office. Al Jazeera has a live blog of events with some pictures.

According to the New York Times, the Obama Administration shares the goal of the protesters to get Mubarak out. But this was a strange story when it was rushed to release, with lots of spelling errors and misplaced sentence fragments last night, and it’s still a strange story now.

This is a very strange jobs report from the Labor Department. The economy gained a paltry 36,000 jobs in January according to the report, which is far below expectations and a real disaster for the economy. Nevertheless, the topline unemployment rate fell 0.4% to 9.0%.

How does this happen?

A bunch of national security journalists are tracking down the three Qataris — described as a potential fifth 9/11 cell — described in this WikiLeaks cable and first reported by the Telegraph. I wanted to do the reverse of what they’re doing — to use their reporting to see how someone gets on a terrorist watchlist.

And so begins the Day of Departure, the mass demonstration called by the Youth of Tahrir Square for after Friday prayers.

• I blame Carter, Clinton and Obama.
• It’s hard out there for a dictator.
• Kristof: we are all Egyptians.
• He’s just pretending not to be Muslim.
• Why does Atrios hate America?

As large band may be preparing to usher Mubarak off the stage, naturally not empty-handed.

A busy week for two Supreme Court Justices