Still-President Mubarak said three things in his third and latest prerecorded speech, and not one of them had anything to do with him leaving right now.
First, he will stay in office until September, second, he is "delegating power and authority to the Vice President [Omar Suleiman]," and third: he is very angry at "being dictated orders" from, presumably, Washington.
For the first time in his life -- at least publicly -- he sided with the Egyptian public's anger at the interference of foreign governments whose priorities are not with the Egyptian people. Though the irony of the notion was lost on Mubarak, it was not lost on the Egyptian people -- as was clearly visible and loudly heard in Tahrir Square in Cairo.
The exponential rise in the public's anger in live broadcasts from Tahrir indicated without a doubt that Mubarak's attempts to empathize with the people would simply not work.
"I take pride in you. I feel deep pain, the same pain you felt. My response to your voice and your message and your demands is a commitment that cannot be waived."
It didn't help that he was so patronizing.
"I address you all with a speech from the heart, a speech from the father to his children, from the father to his sons and daughters."
And, as with his previous two speeches, he reinforced his authority and his power, saying that "until [he] hand[s] over the banner" and "until authority and power is handed over in the coming elections in September", he will absolutely stay in place.
In my capacity as President of the State...
I have laid down a vision to exit the current crisis...
I have laid down a framework...
I handed down my orders...
... by virtue of the powers vested in the President of the State...
And after he repeatedly spoke of himself, his service to the country, and how no one can tell him to leave the homeland in which he presumes to die, he said that "the current moment is not related to my personality, not to Hosni Mubarak, but to Egypt."
His passions were flaring throughout. But this great dictator's greatest animosity was reserved for those who would tell him what to do.
"I cannot and will not accept to be dictated orders from outside," Mubarak said. "No matter what the source is and no matter what the excuses and justifications are."
"We will not allow others to gloat over us. We will prove we are not a satellite state, followers from others, being dictated orders from others. We shape our own decisions. We will prove this."
He went on and on about making constitutional amendments and even "clearing the way to scrap the emergency law" which has for decades been a point of extreme dissatisfaction amongst the people.
But again, and as always with Mubarak, it seems, he failed to hear the people. They want him out. But he does not go.