CAIRO—Good news for political reformers and Islamists: In an unexpected bit of diplomatic choreography, several members of the Muslim Brotherhood have been invited to attend Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo tomorrow. This is a small triumph for the many people upset that Obama’s visit would simply affirm Hosni Mubarak’s near-monopoly on political discourse here, and if reports are true that the invitation came after a push for Washington, suggests that Obama isn’t putting on a show perfectly tailored to Mubarak’s liking.

To the typical American, the Muslim Brothers may sound more sinister than they are: Dedicated to an Islamist society in Egypt, they are a badly weakened political party which—although linked to terrorism in past decades—now operates nonviolently in the Egyptian parliament, in what precious little breathing room Mubarak’s security state allows.

… Oddly, it is not Islamists like Habib who are most upset with Obama right now. It is sectarian reformers like Ayman Nour, a 2005 presidential candidate who was imprisoned in 2006 and unexpectedly released earlier this year. I also met today with Nour, who told me that he, too, had been invited to Obama’s speech—although he says he won’t go and doesn’t expect to applaud it. Tomorrow, I’ll write more about Nour, perhaps the one Egyptian opposition figure Obama can get behind.

Seems like its real.