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Holmes. jami, let me start with you. the you've been blogging on the very issue of the constitution. if indeed president mubarak does step down, satisfying all of the protesters that are milling in the streets and spent so many days there, is the constitution strong enough to get them to the next place? >> look, they have a constitution in egypt. it's been on the books, ratified by the people in 1971. but what we don't always understand here in the west is that a revolution does not necessarily lead you to democracy and that a constitution is really just a bunch of words on a page. that it nee...

And it is that today coucacauph much going on in tahrir square, liberation square. ron allen is live from cairo and has been watching this. ron, you were telling us that some people around you had not heard of the news yet. >> reporter: word is spreading now, richard. word is getting out. people are getting messages from friends and family. the whole twitter generation of folks down here, the word is spreading. some people told us that a military official a little earlier stood up on top of a tank and said to them that there will be a big announcement later tonight, good news, and he didn't sa...

Have been very circumstance um spent about their comments. this is largely driven by the people in the square, the hundreds of thousands of people we've seen the past few weeks. at any rate, gibbs very hesitant to say anything other than he does not want to prejudge what might happen later today. leon panetta, the director of the central intelligence agency, as it happens, richard, he was on the hill today testifying before the house select committee on intelligence, an annual assessment of the terror threat, and he seemed to confirm many of the reports that we're hearing coming out of egypt r...

An arab language channel has reported he's traveled. the information minister and the prime minister, who both represent mubarak' government are saying that he is still in power. the military has come out and said it will take actions to secure the country, to secure the aspirations of the people. we have also been told that a military representative has contacted the protesters, saying that their demands will be met. what we don't know, if mubarak will come out and say this. we don't know where he's going to go. but we are hearing as we've been reporting all along from two sources that presid...

Point of view of the united states government as well. i think the worst case scenario for all of these players was violent clashes in the streets. i think the military was able to keep its legitimacy through this by not cracking down on the protesters and by not taking over power when it was clear that they could have done that by force at some point. so i think everyone here is acting pretty rationally. >> jonathan allen, you bring up a good point because the crowds are not from one group, they come from all classes, all backgrounds. we're talking about the educated and the middle class, all...