7 commentsThe Al Arabiya interview
Obama’s first TV interview as President was with Al Arabiya. The full video is below. CBS News has a full transcript.
Part 1:
Part 2:
I really liked the tone of the interview. One of the more important parts of the interview was when Obama said:
“In my inauguration speech, I spoke about: You will be judged on what you’ve built, not what you’ve destroyed. And what [Al Qaeda has] been doing is destroying things. And over time, I think the Muslim world has recognized that that path is leading no place, except more death and destruction.
Now, my job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect. I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries. [...] And so what I want to communicate is the fact that in all my travels throughout the Muslim world, what I’ve come to understand is that regardless of your faith – and America is a country of Muslims, Jews, Christians, non-believers – regardless of your faith, people all have certain common hopes and common dreams.
And my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there’s no reason why we can’t restore that. And that I think is going to be an important task.
But ultimately, people are going to judge me not by my words but by my actions and my administration’s actions. And I think that what you will see over the next several years is that I’m not going to agree with everything that some Muslim leader may say, or what’s on a television station in the Arab world – but I think that what you’ll see is somebody who is listening, who is respectful, and who is trying to promote the interests not just of the United States, but also ordinary people who right now are suffering from poverty and a lack of opportunity. I want to make sure that I’m speaking to them, as well. “
On The Media interviewed Al Arabiya’s Washington bureau chief, Hisham Melham about the Obama interview, as well as the reaction it received in the Arab world.
7 comments
Just dropped by to throw up a link to Charles Krauthammer’s response to the Obama interview: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/01/us_respected_and_bled_for_musl.html
Thanks for the link, I have a response to a lot of the issues raised there, but I’ll write it as a separate post, as it’s a bit involved.
brendan, I hope you don’t agree with that Krauthammer piece… I have yet to check out the Obama interview (will do that later)… but Krauthammer’s piece is disgusting.
Ok.. just watched the interview… in my opinion, this is in incredible: this is exactly what I was hoping for from this administration. The president’s view that the U.S. ideology is one of “building” whereas terrorists are “destroyers”, and the respect and open hand that he offers to the Muslim world in this interview is just outstanding. I particularly liked his piece about trying to find a compassionate and realistic solution to solving the Palestinian crisis. I thought this interview was exceptional, I even enjoyed the interviewer’s candid and frank expression of how the Muslim world views America. This interview gets an A+ from me. In my opinion, this is precisely the start and exactly the message we should be sending to people in that region. This is not an apology; this is the President of America making a whole lot of sense— and yeah— I think this sort of stuff matters. -P
@ Brendan Just look at Krauthammer’s piece and view the difference in tone. Obama’s interview is about building friendships, and whereas Krauthammer’s piece is about building fences.
@Peyton I’m certain we’re not reading the same article.
@Brendan Ha!
@Brendan… I posted a detailed response to you (and this Krauthammer article) on my blog. It was too long for a comment, Matt
Your immediate reaction may be one of confrontation… but I cared enough to take the time to write it (it took a couple of hours)… if that matters…. so alas, get from it what you will. -P http://streetsavoirware.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-we-should-care.html
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