Here is one:
For as long as I can remember, my Muslim identity and my American identity have made me a stranger in both worlds.
In the sensitivities of the post- 9/11 era, I had to be cautious when asserting my Muslim identity to my fellow Americans who were not Muslim. When visiting cousins in Pakistan, I had to be cautious asserting my pride in being an American.
Today, I have never been so proud to be a Muslim-American. Thank you, President Obama, for bringing our two worlds together, and for helping me merge the worlds within myself.
Moein Khawaja
Philadelphia
To all of this, [url=http://islamdom.blogspot.com/2009/06/obama-wastes-everyones-time-in-cairo.html]one must not overlook this commentary[/url].
All this business of pride in “identity” is a blind alley…it leads nowhere as pride usually does. Tell us rather what you have done with the life given you…
I thought the speech was mere rhetoric and followed the format of most of his other major speeches – start by identifying with the people (all sides), then bring in his biographical and personal engagement, lecture them on their responsibilities, move on to the Kumbaya-can’t-we-all-get-along phase, then call upon God to bless and fix the issues while cutting U.S. funding to the very programs that could bring Democracy to these countries.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/greenwald/68502
Obama is what he has always been, a thin-skinned, egotistical, megalomaniac. His straw man arguments are beginning to wear.
http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2009/06/potus-as-the-great-defender-of-the-faith.html
I so believe anything the NYTimes publishes./sarc
Okay, so we have a new tone, a tone of respect and understanding.
So what do we do about [url=http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5546V320090605?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=22&sp=true]THIS[/url]?
The letters, by and large, demonstrate that Obama’s tactics are working. He diminishes the Muslim sense that Westerners are ignorant, racist, and condescending. He challenges them in a fashion that Muslims are challenging each other.
Muslims are now given the incentive to challenge extremist Muslims.
Those who think all Muslims are the same will be disappointed.
I am reminded of a conversation I had here in Cairo with a young Muslim man, about 25 years old, quite a modern and forward-looking young man, with cousins in the US. I said that we accept all religions in our country, and all are free to practice as they wish. Mohamed said, “But you don’t accept polygamy, and so you don’t really accept the religion.” True. The Muslim definition of “religion” includes everything the Qur’an and traditions deal with, and that’s just about everything, social, religious ritual, political, everything.
vulcanhammer #1, thanks for the link to Abu Douad’s blog. Nothing better than to listen to Christians from the region.
“He diminishes the Muslim sense that Westerners are ignorant, racist, and condescending.”
Actually, “ignorant, racist, and condescending” is not far off describing the majority of the (semi- or largely illiterate) Muslim populations of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and (partly) Indonesia. Ask why literacy is so low among them and democracy nonexistent. (Clue: starts with ‘I’.) Those with education are either the elite who plan to keep things that way – or they are trying to come to the West to live. Go figure.
Azusa,
Not to mention the ‘romanticized’ Western view of history that puts Islamic conquerors as a peaceful people who brought civilization and tolerance to the areas they conquered, ignoring the tyranny they also brought and ‘conversion by the sword’. Sort of like the same view we have of the Native Americans as ‘all getting along in peace’ until the mean ol’ nasty Europeans came along.
Both revisionist views are incorrect.
Jim Elliott
Florida
#11: Quite so. The lands conquered by the Arabs already had hundreds of years of existence as parts of the Roman or Persian empires, with long developed traditions of literature, law and culture. The Moghuls in India faced a centuries-long fightback by Hindus.
“No wonder Al Qaeda fears and hates President Obama” So Al Qaeda fears and hates Obama because he is a man of peace and they hated George Bush because he was a man of war.
I heard a commentator on the news say that now that Obama is president, Osama bin Laden is no longer to be considered a threat in the world and so it doesn’t matter what he threatens on tapes, nor should we waste time going after him.
#7. Muslims are now given the incentive to challenge extremist Muslims.
Muslims have always challenged the extremist Muslims – they just didn’t make the news in the West.
#10,11,12 The low literacy rates of Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India is primarily due to socio-economic reasons, not religion or the ‘elites’. The Mughal empire ended when the British captured Delhi, although parts of the empire disintegrated or were overthrown by regional rulers (not all of them were Hindu)
Check out Mark Steyn’s take on Obama’s pandering:
[url=http://www.ocregister.com/articles/world-muslim-president-2446787-obama-one ]Obama’s message of weakness: [i]A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past.[/i][/url]
If President Bush had delivered this speech, you would find reasons to support it.
Sorry, #17, I can’t see Pres. Bush delivering this sort of weak-kneed speech. He had a vision of the US being the leader of the world, instead of Obama’s apparent vision of the US being one of several countries in the world who has a few things to say about what goes on in the world, if the rest of the world doesn’t mind us saying it.
It would be interesting, though, to compare Bush’s D-Day speeches with Obama’s. I’m sure they are online SOMEWHERE.
Sorry, I didn’t mean D-Day. I meant speeches in general. The comparison between Obama and Bush is this: Bush delivered teleprompter speeches with all the gusto of a wooden figure. But when he spoke off the cuff, he was amazing. Obama can’t speak off the teleprompter for anything. They are opposites in this regard.
About Obama’s D-Day speech. It was good. Not fantastic, I thought Gordon Brown’s was better, as was the Canadian Prime Minister’s. The only sour note was his bringing it back to “ME — it’s all about me”, but referencing hs great-uncle. None of the others, who no doubt had even closer family ties to the war, did this, and yes, I listened to most of the speeches of the day.
Jim Elliott
Florida
Obama’s speech wasn’t weak-kneed or pandering. He challenged the Muslim world in a variety of ways.
Bush delivered good off the cuff speeches? Obama’s off the cuff responses are thoughtful. The teleprompter meme is essentially a false conservative talking point.
You just need to watch David Letterman’s comparison to get a sense.
Obama’s speech was weak-kneed and pandering. The only challenge he issued to the Muslim world was to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and to ask Muslim world to accept the 2 state solution. Otherwise he did nothing to challenge the Muslim world. He did not challenge Muslims to reign in Islamic terrorist; he did not challenge them to educate all of their people; he did not challenge them to educate women and give them equal rights to men (Michelle Obama did not even go to Riyadh); he did not challenge the Arab nations rich in oil to be responsible to the rest of the world and not hold up the rest of the world; he did not challenge the Muslim world to take a strong stand against a nuclear Iran or to stop funding Hamas or Hezbollah, two of the biggest terrorist organizations in the world. John + you are just wrong on this one.
And John+, by the way, the teleprompter thing is not a conservative red herring. I personally watched during the campaign a couple of times when his teleprompter failed, and he had not a clue what to say and hemmed and hawed as if he were a neophyte at public speaking. I’ve often noticed that problem with lawyers who never practiced law.
And speaking of his never having practiced law, did you know that no lawyer in any trial court can ask a jury to empathize with a defendant – that is against the rules of evidence. So why does our President base his appointment of a S. Ct justice, of all persons, on someone who can “empathize?” One more area, I’m afraid, where he is woefully naive, ill-informed, and pandering, John+.
The next time Obama talks off the ‘prompter, count the number of ‘ums’ he utters, and lost threads of thought and incoherent statements.
For example, the last time he was speaking when the teleprompter goofed:
“In addition to John – sorry, the – I just noticed I jumped the gun here, um…. um… Go ahead. Move it up. um .. I had already introduced all you guys.†( http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=327543 )
And there was the great one on St. Patrick’s Day, where he [url=http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Barack-Obama-Thanks-Himself-In-Teleprompt-Blunder-During-Address-With-Irish-PM-On-St-Patricks-Day/Article/200903315243932]thanked himself[/url], reading an incorrect line in the speech!
Not a clue as to how to cover. He is not a great orator. He’s a great speech reader.
Even VP Biden recognized this [url=http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/05/biden_obamas_teleprompter_brok.html]in his speech[/url] at the Air Force Academy:
“What I am going to tell the president when I tell him his TelePrompTer is broken. What will he do then?”
So it can’t be a Republican talking point if the VP admits it!
Listening to Bush speak was truly enteraining. I think the writers for Saturday Night Live and John Stewart were able to take a vacation the whole time he was in office.
Firstly, I don’t think Obama’s speeches are all that great…they are way too carefully crafted for reasons other than to inspire Americans.
Secondly, say what you want about President Bush, he gave the impression that he loved our country and believed her to be exceptional, which she is. Obama does not give that impression…
I remember hearing commentator after commentator the first time Bush spoke ‘off the cuff’. They were all saying things like “If he spoke like this all the time, we’d have a different view of this president!” and “Why doesn’t he speak like this more often?”