The Speech

Okay, it was a really good speech. I finally listened to it -- I had read it on paper yesterday morning -- and he nailed it. I mean, he botched a lot of the Arabic words (hijab, al-Azhar, etc.), but it was good. I suspect that I agree with the Washington Post that all anyone will remember will be the Israel stuff, and that's too bad. And I even agree with the very end of Krauthammer's unintentionally hilarious and epic whine about settlements today (in Israel, only far-right MPs struck the same tone as Krauthammer yesterday) when he says this might cause some leaders in the Arabic-speaking world to just sit on their hands and expect Obama to deliver Israeli concessions with no movement on their sides. (Because this was exactly the vibe I got during Abu Mazen's press conference with Obama last week.)

But still, it was a really good speech. I watched it using this cool interactive feature provided by the New York Times, so if you have not seen the speech yet, click here.