By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
CounterPunch
"....This is not detract from Obama’s laudable efforts to rewrite history into a parable of tolerance and mutual respect. And some of the history Obama did get right. He’s surely the first president to state before several million people that the United States did play a role in overthrowing Mossadegh in Iran in 1954. But his address signals the problem with presidential speeches professing moral purpose of the purest ichor. The higher the phrases soar, the more people start reminding themselves of the facts on the ground....
Least credible to any Muslim would have been the “balanced” passages about Israel and Palestine and the measured calls to Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza to disdain violence and swap formal recognition of Israel for … for what? Pledges by the Netanyahu government to build more settlements?.....
There are fine words. There are facts on the ground, and they often strayed far from each other in Obama’s big speech. One 1000-pound bomb or remote-controlled drone trumps 10,000 words on rhetoric about peace......
There’s a good case for saying that with those words Bush Sr signed the death warrant for his re-election. He lost the Jewish vote and his son never forgot it. I’d guess that much earlier in his presidency Obama is on his way to losing it too. The guy must know what he’s doing, and if he doesn’t, there’s always Rahm Emanuel at his elbow to remind him."
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