I think the impressive thing about the speech was the scope of the discussion. Perhaps the most persuasive part of the speech was the part about 9/11 and Al-Qaeda. I think it is amazing that he very coolly took apart the whole Al-Qaeda rhetoric with the sheer evil of what they did -- and right in the middle of a Muslim country.   That was very impressive: look, this is why we acted the way we did, both wrongly and rightly.   I disagree completely with the approach (they should never have turned these terrorists into warriors, something Obama might have said, just to cut them down further to size), but I think it was a brilliant piece of forensic rhetoric. And in fact the whole speech was an exercise in forensics, which Obama does better than anyone else in the world -- his race speech was like this one. These are the facts we have to deal with: now let's work with them.

It is his basic strategy, and we will see how it plays out.

yours,

Peter T.