Obama’s Cairo Speech
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Obama Calls for Thaw in U.S. Relations With Cuba
…Other leaders here said that in watching Mr. Obama extend his hand to Cuba, they felt they were witnessing a historic shift. And in another twist, Cuba’s strongest ally at the summit, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, no fan of the United States, was photographed at the meeting giving Mr. Obama a hearty handclasp and a broad smile. — NY Times
There will be no shortage of people attacking this as a Chamberlain-like capitulation to the Evil Persian Hitlers, and there will be an equally vocal group mocking it as an empty gesture from America’s bloodthirsty and war-craving emperor. It’s true that, ultimately, this will only be meaningful if followed up by action, but this video — sent by Obama to Iran, and to Iranians, for Nowruz, a major national holiday, and released this morning — is, after 30 years of nothing but threats and hateful rhetoric exchanged between the two countries, a palpably different message not only in tone but also in content. — Glenn Greenwald
Obama: We Are Going To Close Gitmo
But Says No Decision Has Been Made On Prosecuting Bush Admin. Personnel Accused Of Torture — CBS News
“We are going to have to take a new approach” to Iran, President-elect Barack Obama said. —ABC News, “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos
Secret Service agents stand outside in the freezing wind as Barack Obama and his family visit the home of his great-great grandfather in Kempton, Iowa. The home was in the family until the ’70s. (Via Slate)
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In reacting to Barack Obama’s decision to invite Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inaugural, the left has been focusing on Obama’s decision to offer, while the right has been focusing on Warren’s decision to accept…
…Warren’s decision to accept an invitation from a liberal president is as clear a symbol of the entry of evangelicals into mainstream culture as one can imagine. In the conservative Christian subculture, liberals are treated with scorn. In the real world, they control the White House and Congress. How many evangelical preachers will be able to demonize Obama once Mr. Evangelical himself has blessed him? By opposing Warren’s choice with such vehemence, the left seems determined to drive evangelicals back to the world of victimology and conspiracy-mongering. This is not wise.
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A president may by all means use his office to gain re-election, to shore up his existing base, or to attract a new one. But the day of his inauguration is not one of the days on which he should be doing that. It is an event that belongs principally to the voters and to their descendants, who are called to see that a long tradition of peaceful transition is cheerfully upheld, even in those years when the outcome is disputed. I would myself say that it doesn’t need a clerical invocation at all, since, to borrow Lincoln’s observation about Gettysburg, it has already been consecrated. But if we must have an officiating priest, let it be some dignified old hypocrite with no factional allegiance and not a tree-shaking huckster and publicity seeker who believes that millions of his fellow citizens are hellbound because they do not meet his own low and vulgar standards.
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Two sources familiar with the plans tell CNN that at their first post-election meeting in the Oval Office on Nov. 10, Obama proposed that the two men get together again before the inaugural along with former presidents Jimmy Carter, George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton.
The sources said the current President quickly agreed it would be a good idea and all sides are trying to make it happen somewhere between Jan. 1 and the Jan. 20 inaugural, though coordinating the schedules of five onetime commanders-in-chief can be difficult.
The high-powered meeting is another sign of how closely the Obama and Bush teams have been working together to try and make sure the first post-9/11 transfer of power goes smoothly.
“It’s been unbelievably cooperative,” said one Democratic official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the private conversations between the President and President-elect.
