Friday afternoon’s broadcast of the al-Jazeera Arabic news channel presented a tableau that might well encapsulate the state of modern Egypt. On one side of the split screen, President Mohamed Morsi spoke before thousands of cheering supporters outside the presidential palace. “Don’t be worried,” he said, standing in front a backdrop of soaring birds. “Let’s move together into a new phase.”

Meanwhile, the other half of the screen showed tear-gas canisters arcing into the ranks of the thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square demonstrating against Morsi and chanting many of the same slogans they chanted against Hosni Mubarak nearly two years earlier.

(MORE:Morsi’s Gaza Challenge: How New Can the New Egypt Afford to Be?)

The latest flashpoint in Egypt’s terminally messy postrevolutionary period was Morsi’s stunning Thanksgiving-night constitutional decree that granted himself sweeping and unchecked authority for the next several months and greatly limited the powers…