Obama yesterday in Normany, France commemorating the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion
UP-FRONT LOCAL NUGGET!
What Pittsburgh (Don’t Laugh) Can Teach Obama (Howard Fineman) from Newsweek
"Obama announced the city in which the U.S. will host the next G20 summit in September. His choice drew laughter and puzzlement from reporters and diplomats alike. Pittsburgh? Are you serious? As a proud native, I understand and agree with the president's decision. Pittsburgh's story is inspiring and impressive."
With Obama, a 'New Beginning' from Al Madina [of Saudi Arabia in English]
"This new approach is tantamount to a spiritual return to American values and the great achievements of the Founding Fathers, who laid the basis for those values which endowed future generations with the capacity to implement and strengthen them."
'Hussein' is for Bold (Editorial) from L'Orient Le Jour [of Lebanon in English]
"His middle name Hussein demonstrates the Muslim ancestry that he bears with pride and which couldn't fail to confirm the authenticity of his method of approach. … Obama is an extraordinary product of the interweaving of cultures who has succeeded in rising to the White House, repudiating all prejudices and stereotypes, even going as far as challenging the right of Western countries to forbid their immigrant populations from wearing the veil."
German Editorial Roundup: 'Barack Hussein Globama' ... Proof Opposites Can Unite from Der Spiegel [of Germany in English]
"The expectations were huge. And on Thursday in Cairo, US President Barack Obama did his best to deliver, trying to reverse years of animosity between the United States and Muslims across the globe."
Obama's Call Splits Israelis from Arab News [of Saudi Arabia in English]
"Israeli voters are divided on whether the Jewish state should accede to US President Barack Obama’s demand to stop settlement building and accept a Palestinian state, a newspaper poll showed yesterday."
Obama's Genius is to Say What We All Know (Andrew Sullivan) from the Times [of London]
"It’s [Obama's] biography that made a speech that echoed some of George W Bush’s themes reach a critical mass of credibility. But in many respects this was not a speech, as traditionally understood. It was an intervention."
US Republicans Don't Get It: Bush Soiled Use of the Term 'Democracy' from L'Express [of France in English]
This item really captures something significant Republican neocons have missed.
"U.S. Republicans have responded like frightened virgins, stigmatizing the absence of the term 'democracy' from Obama's speech. This shows a failure to grasp the degree to which since 2003, Iraq has distorted perceptions of the word in the Muslim world. Things have gone so far that the word is now synonymous with being a hypocritical pretext for imperialism."
Obama's Speech Marks a Strategic Revolution for Israel (Editorial) from Al Haaretz [of Israel in English]
"There have been presidents who rose through the political system and could pull the strings in Congress. Barack Obama is a rock star. He has total confidence in his powers of persuasion - if he can just have access to a platform, two teleprompters and airtime. Let him speak to the audience, any audience, and he'll sell them a new, friendly, considerate America. Obama's meteoric rise to the presidency and his massive popularity just go to show that his self-confidence is well founded."
Clinton Shreds Bush-Israel Settlement Understandings, Fuels US-Israel Row from DEBKAfile [of Israel in English]
"The Netanyahu government is now facing its first real test. In Washington, the gloves are off. If the prime minister holds to his defensive, accommodating posture toward on the settlement issue and fails to punch back with demands that the other side - and the United States itself stand by former accords and commitments - he will find himself inexorably forced back step by step on other vital security interests, including Iran's accelerated nuclear weapons program."
Obama Has Passed '3AM' Test from the Huffington Post
"It's been fifteen months since Hillary Clinton charged that Barack Obama lacked the chops to handle a crisis phone call at 3 A.M. And the two have gone from bitter electoral rivals to partners in foreign policy. On Sunday, Clinton revisited that defining attack affirming that Obama could answer that early morning call."
After Cairo, It's Clinton Time (Thomas Friedman) from the New York Times
"“It’s not what he says, but what he does,” many said. No, ladies and gentlemen of the Middle East, it is what he says and what you do and what we do. We must help, but we can’t want democracy or peace more than you do."
Obama Woos Syria in Push for Peace from the Times [of London]
"Former senator George Mitchell’s expected visit follows a fortnight’s intensive diplomatic wooing of Syria in the hope of splintering its alliance with Iran and persuading Damascus to use its influence to moderate Hamas, the militant Islamic group that rules the Gaza Strip"
The Settlement Rift from the Editorial Board of the Washington Post
"President Obama has delivered a necessary shock to Israel's right-wing government. Will he now compromise?"
In Iran, Disparate Powerful Forces Ally Against Ahmadinejad from the Los Angeles Times
"Powerful reformists and conservatives within Iran's elite have joined forces to wage an unprecedented behind-the-scenes campaign to unseat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, worried that he is driving the country to the brink of collapse with populist economic policies and a confrontational stance toward the West."
Obama Calls France Out on Banning Muslim Veil from Le Figaro [of France in English]
"Taking a position opposed to that of France, Barack Obama defended the right of Muslim women in the West to wear the veil. In 2004, in the name of secularism, France banned all ostentatious religious symbols from schools, including the Islamic veil."
Obama is Blazing a New Trail with His Bold Moves on the Economy from US News and World Report
"Obama is pushing the political pendulum from the conservative approach of Ronald Reagan, who said government was the problem, to a more liberal philosophy that holds that only Washington has the wherewithal to provide the answers. More than anything else, he has brought big, activist government back into play."
In Cairo, Campaign '09 (Kathleen Parker) from the Washington Post
A lot of truth in this column.
"So it was that the Muslim world got to hear the 2009 version of Barack Obama's 2004 Democratic convention speech."
Obama's Trip Raises the Bar from Politico
"Obama is moving into a new season of his presidency where it’s clear that his celebrity is going to be durable, and now he wants to start leveraging it to add clear accomplishments on a long list of issues that have flummoxed his predecessors."
LONG-FORM NEWS NUGGET!
Obama's Team Works Congress from the Inside from New York Times Magazine
"Making good on his promise will require not just public expenditure on a disorienting scale but also the kind of activism and creativity, the birthing of new rules and institutions, at which Washington hasn’t succeeded for generations."
PHOTO NUGGET!
Behind the Scenes at the White House from US News and World Report
HERE is an exceptionally good slideshow of the Obamas in the White House -- check it out!
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