The most important thing about the Al Arabiya interview is of course that it happened first, giving huge credibility to an Arab network and a fine journalist, Hisham Melhem. The news is that Obama virtually endorsed the Saudi peace initiative and recognized the centrality of I/P conflict to peace in the Middle East:
Hisham Melhem: Absolutely.
THE PRESIDENT: — to put forward something that is as significant as that.
I think that there are ideas across the region of how we might pursue peace.
And the other news is that he is celebrating his Muslim roots.
stake in the well-being of the Muslim world that the language we use
has to be a language of respect. I have Muslim members of my family. I
have lived in Muslim countries.
Q: The largest one.
THE PRESIDENT: The largest one, Indonesia.
The Melhem interview is a perfect counterweight to the important interview that Obama gave Jeffrey Goldberg last May, when he needed conservative Jews. Then he said that just about all his Chicago were Jewish, that he was Jewish himself in thought, that he was formed by Philip Roth and Holocaust consciousness, and a Jewish camp counselor, and, the big enchilada, Leon Uris:
scholars and writers, even though I didn’t know it at the time. Whether
it was theologians or Philip Roth who helped shape my sensibility, or
some of the more popular writers like Leon Uris…. [T]here are some
suspicions of me in the Jewish community. Look, we don’t do nuance well
in politics and especially don’t do it well on Middle East policy. We
look at things as black and white, and not gray. It’s conceivable that
there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, “This is a guy
who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein,
and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so
he’s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as
George Bush,” and that’s something they’re hopeful about. I think
that’s a perfectly legitimate perception as long as they’re not
confused about my unyielding support for Israel’s security.
What was merely "conceivable" then in the minds of others is now something Obama himself is expressing with real feeling. Then he was distancing himself from his Muslim roots. Now he's running toward them. This man is a great politician. Having swallowed the middle-of-the-road Goldberg in the primaries and the general election, he is moving on to his next constituency. (Phil Weiss)
al arabiya not much different than al hurra in murdered iraq.
obama being manipulative.
arabs, muslims do not trust this administration.
President Obama expects to be enriched, the same way the Clintons were, after his term as president. He is lying to the people of the Middle East, who should expect more American made weapons fired into their homes. Until there is concrete action by the US that reduces Israel's ability to kill Palestinians, ends the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and ends belligerence towards Iran, Middle Eastern peoples should tell the American president and his envoys they have no credibility to negotiate anything.
Formed by Philip Roth? Oh, my. Surely Barry is referring to The Anatomy Lesson, in which Roth's protagonist Zuckerman finally leaves Newark and heads for Obama's Chicago. Excerpt from Spacebeer:
————
More than anything else, is the horrible pain in [Zuckerman's] neck and shoulders that has incapacitated him for the past 18 months. No doctor can diagnose it. No alternative therapies help it. The best he can do is take Percodan, drink vodka, and spend most of his time lying flat on his back on a playmat he has installed in the center of his living room. Since he is currently between wives, Zuckerman has accumulated a set of four women (his financial consultant's wife, an heiress attending the nearby college, a rather hilariously depressive Polish immigrant who treats Zuckerman at the hair loss clinic, and a wholesome artist who lives in the country) who come to his apartment and cook him food, run his errands, listen to his complaints, tell their stories, and not infrequently have sex with him in various pain-free positions. They are, however, of little comfort to Zuckerman who can't write and isn't even sure if he still wants to.
The sometimes stifling inaction of the first half of the book explodes into a drug-fueled trip to Chicago in the second half of the book where Zuckerman spends part of his time pretending to be a pornographer and the rest of his time trying to get into medical school.
http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2008/11/anatomy-lesson-1983.html
————
Zuckerman's painful back and myriad girlfriends have a Kennedyesque ring, which must have deeply impressed the wide-eyed young Barry.
Not to mention the scene in which Zuckerman, flat on his back, describes the Polish shiksa as humping him like a metronome.
Hmmmm … reckon they still have interns in the White House? LOL.
Then he was distancing himself from his Muslim roots. Now he's running toward them. This man is a great politician.
Phil, you are fantasising again (unless the whole post is self-defeatingly subtle irony).
Politicians that serve the two-party regime aren’t “leaders,” they’re mirrors that reflect various special interest back on themselves, providing them an image of what they want to see the most.
The only people that win in the corrupt two-party regime system are those with enough wealth to surround the president with their own kind, hence he is primarily reflecting their interests most of the time (other than when he occasionally reflects some other group paraded before him for the cameras).
Obama is primarily surrounded by Zionists, hence he will continue to primarily reflect their interests until this changes, which will be never. Corrupt liberals love ‘the Jews’ almost as much as do corrupt Christian Zionists.
This might be Phil's best post ever.
Knowing Phil, it may either be:
A) completely honest optimism.
B) spectacularly subtle satire.
C) some of both
hmmm … ok … I shall try to always consider the possibility of super-subtle irony in Phil's more bizarre posts from now on …
If Obama had really wanted to show courage and respect for the Muslim world, he would have done his first interview with al-Jazeera instead of al-Arabiya.
Exactly as Craig said.
Also, the Arabiya-Hurra comparison is quite accurate, I would say, although Arabiya is Saudi-owned and Hurra is American-owned.
Angry Arab gets closer to the truth about obama's interview
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2009/01/bushama-speaks-pitfalls-of-economism.html
Craig: ditto here. Obama's going to try to finesse. The litmus test
will be how many settlements are kicked out, and will the blockade
attributes be killed. Keep your eye on the ball, not Obama's sweet talk. And see if he ever mentions a stick in the form of cutting down
welfare for Israel, especially in the USA's current economic condition.
"…he was formed by Philip Roth and Holocaust conciousness…"
These are treacherous waters. They have claimed many a promising young intellectual!
well, Norman Mailer started it, with his unforgettable buggering of the German au pair, Ruta, in the interestingly titled "American Dream". The passage actually claims that by doing this he is somehow punishing Hitler. You see, if that is your starting point, your propaganda methodology, it kinda traps you after a while.