Thursday, June 4, 2009

C'mon...everybodies doing it.

A brief personal assessment of Mr. Obama's Cairo performance.

Big points for style: he melded quotes from the Quran with John
Adams & Thomas Jefferson like they had always gone together. Slipped
in "peace be upon them," when mentioning Moses, Jesus & Mohamad
together, (who were having a picnic or something) which went down like
gangbusters. Another big point for mentioning US involvement in the
coup that ousted the democratically elected PM of Iran in 1953 like it
was indisputable fact - which it is. On policy his only points came
from 1) a commitment to defend the rights of women to veil themselves
and 2) an expressed support for microcredit programs. HOWEVER:

Points deducted - for mentioning US support for the Israel-Palestine
two state solution without mentioning his previously stated support of
Jeruselum as Israel's "undivided" capital. For seeming to add the
traditional Muslim farewell only as an afterthought (although, since I
listened to it on the radio it's difficult to tell if this was truly
the case or not). For not offering much more in the way of
substantitve goals.

All in all it was a fine speech that offered considerably more than
his typical rhetoric.

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