Since the beginning of the Arab uprising the defenders of the status quo helped co-opt and domesticate the uprisings. Here they have twisted marxist and socialist ideas/ideals to try to absolve themselves and the criminal role they have played in aborting a meaningful change in the region. 

In the case of Egypt we have seen how the US, a fact this article unsurprisingly ignores, supported a power-sharing between Mubarak's regime without Mubarak and the Muslim Brotherhood and how later, when the latters were ousted, the US regime continued its financial and military support of the Egyptian army and the Egyptian regime. 

We also saw how the leadership of the MB, like its sister Al-Nahdha in Tunisia, hurried to Washington to kiss the hands of US imperialism and show that they could be reliant upon in maintaining the status quo: new faces, the army in the background, elections, but no changes in the fundamentals, i.e. the socio-economic structure that determines the daily bread and butter issues. That is what the writer of this NYT article mean by "moderates" and "democracy". 

I like the coclusion though that radicals should never trust liberals. In times of acute social crises, generally liberals side with repression and counter-revolution to maintain the status quo.