More on Obama's Cairo speech: fatigue!

At a dinner at a friend's place, I commented that Obama's speech was perhaps more well received in the West than in the Middle East. I am actually tired of his big speeches; of course, the problems are immense and varied, and big speeches maybe needed. But, I think I am developing Obama fatigue. It will be neat if for a few days he can kind of lie low and let others do the speechifying!

I agree with the following comment in Cohen's column in the NY Times:

“Some of his sentences and paragraphs are a little complicated for the average listener. It sounds as though he thinks he’s speaking to the M.I.T. faculty or the New York Times editorial board.”

Indeed!

And how about this also from Cohen:

All the rhetorical groundwork the president has now laid — on Iran, Israel-Palestine, the Muslim world — will come to nothing if high principle is not matched by street-smart cunning and maneuver. Obama’s got to get off the podium and down into the bazaar if he’s going to come home with the goods.

Yep. This is what I was telling my friends at the dinner table. Which is also why I do not agree with Friedman's comment that it is not Obama but the Middle East countries that ought to act; Friedman writes:

“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.