Grade Obama’s Cairo Speech

Today’s speech by an American president in an Arab capital was different from all previous ones in one particular fashion. To alter Marshall McLuhan’s famous dictum, the man is the message. Many have mocked Barack Obama’s considerable self-regard, but his private history–much documented and bizarrely twisted, if not debated, during the campaign–clearly embodies the opportunity for Arab leaders and citizens to listen. Perhaps not to trust. Perhaps not to act. But, surely, to listen. That, for me, might constitute the “new beginning.”

The forthright, scrupulous, and candid presentation of his argument was remarkably fresh. That, more than anything else, defines the president’s evolving moral authority, namely, the equitable discussion of reality. As in the Philadelphia race speech and the Notre Dame commencement speech, Obama makes a full accounting of grievances from many sides and shows a sensitivity to the many interpretations of the roots of those grievances. He acknowledges what few have in the past, that what is said in private is seldom expressed in public. That holds true in backyards in Haifa, in Gaza, and in Riyadh as much as it does in the backyards in Birmingham, Charlestown, or the four neighborhood quadrants of Washington, DC. Perhaps until now.

Whether it’ll lead to less war or even more peace in the Middle East remains to be seen, but speaking truth from power as well as to power…that’s leadership. In a region in which intransigent issue after intransigent issue has long been stalemated and mired, that leadership coupled with the president’s unique private history could create a climate for renewed dialogue at least. At least, perhaps, that. And if the president has engendered an openness to listen in the Middle East, that could prove the great breakthrough of today’s speech.

And yet in the Middle East, the “and yets” pile up.

Not for doubting the president’s oratorical capacity, however, nor for expecting that his own mind and frames of argumentation wouldn’t have a large imprint over the speech–it’s been reported that he wrote much of it–my anticipation for the speech was pessimistic. I feared he’d essentially say what every American president in recent memory has said, and that’s exactly what he did: that the U.S. is not embattled with Islam, that America respects Islam, that only a small band of extremists impede peace, that democracy must be earned and not forced, that Israel must exist, and that Palestinians must be freed from occupation. He said all of this–so did President Bush, as well as Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan, Carter, and so on as far back as anyone can recall.

As I’ve been writing here recently, this is not surprising given how the Middle East community essentially sees one American foreign policy no matter who is president and from either party. That foreign view is not surprising because most of the time that’s actually the case. Today’s speech changes little in that respect and is little different. But President Obama might himself be the catalyst for new respect and an actual difference.

This post originally appeared on Politico

How did Obama do at Notre Dame? What message should Obama deliver to Netanyahu?

On Notre Dame: Working in the garden yesterday I remembered that it was almost a year ago that then-candidate Obama spoke to a crowd of 70,000 across the river in downtown Portland during the primaries. I didn’t attend that day, but I could hear the cheers from my back yard rise like a wind of desire–a few miles away, as I say, and across the river. President Obama is the most eloquent president we’ve had–I mean, consistently eloquent–in many a president. No one would claim that either President Bush was an orator–though they had their moments. President Clinton was inconsistent–in the wonkish weeds sometimes, other times, in particular after Oklahoma City, aspiring to be better. Reagan and Kennedy could inspire but Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter not so much. All this shorthand oratory background to say that President Obama could have phoned in a commencement speech and history would have paid no mind. He didn’t. It’s not that the president isn’t a liberal or won’t throw a a partisan elbow or even resist shipping a future adversary off to a Chinese ambassadorship. He is, and he has. But the speech in Indiana was both public and personal in unexpected ways, and in reading it this morning I see it as characteristic of the tone the president hopes to govern by. Unflinchingly respectful. Is it any wonder that, even among those who disagree with his policies, many Americans simply like the man.

As a coda: The truly electrifying speech was given across the country in Merced, California, to a group of graduates mostly immigrants’ children and mostly the first in the families to go to college…by Michele Obama.

On Netanyahu: If something important comes of this meeting we’ll discover it later. Prime Minister Netanyahu will certainly spend time trying to size up President Obama. The president has been underestimated often in his political career, so the prime minister would be wise not to be misread the cues–especially where military action is concerned. Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister was ineffective; he may hope to improve his legacy. If so, they could bode well for Palestinian-Israeli peace efforts. Then again, it may simply be beyond his political imagination to broker a change in the Middle East.

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A Cautionary Tale: LBJ, Guns, & Butter

“How Not to End Another President’s War (L.B.J. Edition)” by Robert Dallek

from The New York Times

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Barack Obama 1.0

“The Thirty Days of Barack Obama” by Elizabeth Drew

from The New York Review of Books

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America: Rebooted

44.

Inauguration Day Special: David Biespiel’s post on Politico’s Arena

I write this as a Texan who grew up in a racially polarized South, and I write not as a Child of the Sixties but as a child during the 60s. Upon taking his oath, President Obama did more than break a vicious racial barrier in American history, he became the physical embodiment of the ideal of American unification.

Private racism is alive and thriving in our country, make no mistake. But if institutional racism can be depicted as a statue in a town square, that statue was pulled down and shattered once and for all today. Obama’s assumption of the presidency indicates not that we have mastered racism but that we have mastered some part of ourselves that has long desired to live wisely and true to our bonds of humanity.

President Obama’s special ability to link our present challenges with those of the past is at the heart of both his oratory and his faith in national unity. That’s where I felt the address crystallized. From the first syllables of the speech, his tone was business-like and he never let up: “For everywhere we look, there is work to be done.” When was the last time this nation was called to act upon such an honest note of self-reflection? The speech was admonitory, but refreshingly candid, too, at times inspiring in its boot-strap philosophy. The concluding conceit of the nation being at the frozen riverside like General Washington’s soldiers during the Revolution was self-defining, the message clear: Let’s cross the river and save our country again. 

Obama’s dismissal of the Bush era was blunt. I was surprised–OK, a wee bit gratified–how starkly he took the Bush administration to the woodshed for its general malpractice over the last eight years. And yet, as a national scold, he didn’t leave out the citizenry either for “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.” Meanwhile, he indicated to the world that America’s role will now be remade. I didn’t take that stance to be naive though it could be. His admonition to divisive world leaders–”your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy”–struck me as a decisive goal to firmly address the more intractable conflicts in the world.

Finally, full confession: I don’t have a television. So I had to borrow one to watch the ceremony. I was at Bush I’s inaugural and Clinton’s first one, too, when I lived in Washington during those years. This time, out here in the West, when the Obamas arrived at the North Portico at 6 a.m. Pacific time I was still lying under the covers–with a mimosa at hand, at least. On television, one image caught my attention–well, two, because every time Senator Feinstein came to the podium she looked like she was in an MGM musical and about to break into song. But one image caught my attention right before the ceremony began: The Episcopal Bush family giving way to the African-American Obama family. On the one hand, there are the historic racial implications in that image. On the other hand, the generational shift is evident, too. The torch has been passed. A new generation of leaders has been elected to govern, a new generation of leaders who bring two finely-earned attitudes. One, frustration with the collapse of legislative democracy to forestall and reverse the multiple layers of physical and civic decline in our country. Two, a can-do spirit to start shoveling out of the hole. 

That faith seemed evident, as well, in every close-up of the audience on the Mall. As I say, I’ve been in that crowd at other inaugurations, and from this corner of the country it seemed to me as if the entire country marched on Washington to start afresh.

from Politico

 

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DB notes: Then conservative blogger Pejman Yousefzadeh disagreed. Here’s the link to the exchange for January 20th, at least. After the 20th, you’ll have to google it with something like “biespiel yousefzadeh obama politico arena” to see where it’s turned up on the Internet.

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Barack Obama School of Poetry

“I, too, am America.” — Langston Hughes

“Langston Hughes’ words are in sync with new political era”

“Langston Hughes once said, “an artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what might choose.” Such are the times again. A deft political poem, a poem that inserts itself into civic discourse with one eye on time and another eye on lyrical imperatives is a rare and necessary piece of art.” Written by David Biespiel.

from The Oregonian

 

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DB notes: Late in the campaign on October 28th in Chester, Pennsylvania, then-Senator Obama rallied supporters in a downpour. If any image from the campaign is destined to become iconic, this should be the one.  

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