Just so you don’t get too excited about Mohammed Morsi, the new democratically elected Islamist president of Egypt, this blast from the past from Jeffrey Goldberg:

I recently had a conversation with Mohamed Morsy, one of the Brotherhood’s senior leaders, in which he refused, to an almost comical degree, to grapple with two simple questions: Could the Brotherhood support a Christian for the Egyptian presidency? Could it support a woman? (The Brotherhood’s 2007 draft party platform, from which the organization is now trying to distance itself, makes clear that a Christian could not serve as president of Egypt.)

“Which Christian?” Morsy responded when I first asked.

I explained: not a particular Christian, but any Christian.

“There are no Christians running for president,” he said.

Yes, I know. It’s a theoretical question.

“This is a nonsense question,” he said. So I asked him if the Brotherhood had ideological objections to a woman’s running for president.

“Which woman?” he asked.

It is worth remembering, particularly at a time when the Muslim Brotherhood is attempting to soften its image, that the group’s essential platform remains unchanged. The Muslim Brotherhood’s avowed creed is “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Quran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

God help the Copts.