A few things I’ve noted:

I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

We can’t have justice in the Moslem world as long as the Moslem world – outside of Iraq and Afghanistan – remains unfree. No justice, no peace – but, no freedom, no justice. All human beings like justice, but most Moslems have no chance at it as they labor under various tyrannies.

As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam — at places like Al-Azhar — that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities — (applause) — it was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

Obama is a pretty poor student. This is the grab-bag of achievements Islam is supposed to have done as a means of denigrating the real source of Europe’s Renaissance – Christianity, especially the Catholic Church, East and West, which preserved the Greco-Roman heritage and instructed Europe in those universities invented by the Church to promote deep learning. I mean, come on, Barry – I think there was a German named Gutenberg who had a bit more to do with printing than any Moslem did…especially given that it was centuries after Europeans started printing books before any Moslem nation would tolerate a printing press. As for majestic arches and soaring spires – didn’t stop in any Gothic cathedrals in your European travels, huh? Racial equality – tell that to the black Africans enslaved in Moslem countries right up to today…

As a salve to wounded Moslem pride – they have a hard time understanding how they fell so far behind when they were allegedly once so far ahead – this is good stuff. As a statement of truth, it falls very far short.

And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States.

Anyone have the name of any American who was Moslem in 1776?

Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; our progress must be shared.

Shared by whom? By the American people and the Moslem governments, corrupt and wicked? Or by the America and Moslem peoples? That is the crux of the matter, Mr. President – are you working for our peoples to get together, or for our people to accommodate their leaders?

And that’s why we’re partnering with a coalition of 46 countries. And despite the costs involved, America’s commitment will not weaken.

A coalition of 46 countries? I thought we were going it alone over the past 8 years? Whence comes all these countries in the coalition?

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It’s a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That’s not how moral authority is claimed; that’s how it is surrendered.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel’s right to exist.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. (Applause.) This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop. (Applause.)

Please note, Mr. President, that you got no applause when you talked about Palestinians renouncing violence and building a government, but got applause when you condemned Israeli communities living in what radical Islamists consider to be Moslem territory. These Islamists consider Tel Aviv to be Moslem territory, Mr. President. Unless and until you can get applause for both ending settlements and ending Moslem violence, your efforts here are wasted.

Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.

Well, its really a matter of Moslem rulers being tolerant as long as their power is unchallenged. As soon as Moslem powers start to crumble, tolerance goes right out the window.

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God’s vision. Now that must be our work here on Earth.

I think its more of a fact that we will live together in peace – as soon as we accept God’s laws about the inherent dignity of all men…and this means we must end abortion, Moslems must end suicide bombings and all of us must strive mightily to cease viewing each other as objects for personal gratification. I know, your speech wasn’t about this at all – in the end, it was about nothing…but you almost reached a point where you could start talking.

And then you stopped.

UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: Finally got to read Obama’s speech tonight… It’s hard to know where to begin, but, I guess the only thing to say is that I found it to be another apologetic speech, making bizarre comparisons (the Holocaust comparison was beyond insulting),  harsher on America and our past actions than on Iran or other Muslim countries and their actions. Any positive things said about the United States, coming from him, seemed to be more boilerplate rhetoric you’d expect from any American leader speaking overseas, than genuine sentiment… especially when you consider his willingness to defecate on this country for applause.

David Frum says the speech was worse than feared

Charles Krauthammer called the speech abstract, vapid, and self absorbed..

Karl Rove:

http://foxnews1.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/foxnews1-foxnews-pub01-live/current/videolandingpage/fncLargePlayer/client/embedded/embedded.swf

UPDATE II, by Mark Noonan: You gotta know it sucked if Huffington Post thinks it was bad. On the whole, I’d say there hasn’t been a more damaging speech made by an American President since the Carter Administration.

UPDATE III, by Mark Noonan: The more I think about it, the more ashamed I am that President Obama thinks it important for we here in the West to accept Moslem women wearing the hijab…its a symbol of subjection, not of modesty. Its a fraud perpetrated on Moslem women as even Mohammed’s wives weren’t required to wear it. Its a disgusting cover for Moslem men who insist upon their women being subordinate, but then go out and try to pick up foreign men in various flesh-pots around the world, even in Moslem countries (yes, I’ve seen them with my own eyes – behind the ornate decor of western-style hotels, off the ground floor, kinda ’round back…where the common schlubs can’t go…). American women don’t put up with that sort of nonsense…

Imagine if a GOP President had appointed someone who had once said, “We have to quit being afraid of the gay rights movement. We also have to quit – I’m trying to find a way to say this. I’m trying not to say, ‘F**k ’em!’ which is what I want to say, because I don’t care what they think!” – think the liberals would be ok with such an appointee? Of course not – they’d be demanding such a person not only not be appointed, but be hounded out of public life for all time to come and that everyone who ever worked with him be cast under a cloud of suspicion. But given that it wasn’t a GOPer who said that, but a gay rights activist, liberals will be calling the man a hero:

The plan seems to be clear. President Obama proclaimed June as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.” He and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have also nominated longtime homosexual activist Kevin Jennings as the Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Department of Education’s Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools.

We are in the midst of another alteration in the terrain of American culture. The goal is the affirmation of license with regard to disordered sexual cravings and the rejection of the Natural Law…

…LifeSiteNews.com reported that Jennings had been quoted as saying members of the “religious right” were “hard core bigots” who comprised about 20 percent of the electorate at Marble Collegiate Church.

“We have to quit being afraid of the religious right. We also have to quit – I’m trying to find a way to say this. I’m trying not to say, ‘F**k ’em!’ which is what I want to say, because I don’t care what they think!” Jennings told his audience, which pealed with laughter. “Drop dead!”

We’re all too used to the exceptional nastiness of the left, but do we really need such people to be running the show in the Department of Education? I mean, isn’t there some ACT-UP demonstration where Jennings’ particular talents would be more useful? Certainly, the political sewer has lots of openings so Jennings won’t lack employment. Why do we taxpayers – including the Christians he hates so much – have to pony up for him?

I know that liberals wish to make politics odious to anyone who doesn’t live and breath politics all the time, but I do hope that Obama will take a step back and realize that he can advance his agenda without hiring people who need a bit of psychological therapy and a course of prayer in order to be fit for decent society.

From The New Republic:

According to the CBO, enacting President Obama’s FY 2010 budget would yield annual budget deficits averaging 5.3 percent over the next decade, with a steadily rising trajectory after 2013 (“A Preliminary Analysis of the President’s Budget, March 2009, Table 1-4, p. 10). The administration has consistently argued that the key remedy for this unsustainable path is comprehensive health care reform-specifically, the cost containment measures for which universal coverage is the precondition.

The impressive analysis of “The Economic Case for Health Care Reform” issued today by the President’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) sheds new light on this claim. Some time ago, the administration set a goal of reducing the annual growth rate of health care costs by 1.5 percentage points, which is the maximum that most experts think would be feasible. According to today’s CEA report, if health care reform measures were able to achieve these savings in full, starting in 2010, the deficit would reduced by only 1 percent of GDP by 2020 (Figure 14, p. 26), leaving the deficit at nearly 5 percent of GDP. (By the way, few experts believe that the health care cost curve could be made to bend as quickly as the CEA analysis assumes.)

The conclusion is inescapable: to accomplish over the next decade what Treasury Secretary Geithner promised yesterday in Beijing, we will need a combination of spending restraints and revenue increases going well beyond what anyone has put on the table so far…(emphasis added)

Now, The New Republic – being The New Republic – implies that eventually someone in Obama-land will have to put forth the budget cuts and tax increases necessary to bring Obamunism in contact with reality. This is rather endearing – the way some liberals actually think there is rationality and honesty in anything a liberal politician is up to. Obama and Co simply don’t care about what is happening – all they want is the plaudits of the MSM, increased power and patronage for themselves and that feeling of accomplishment liberal politicians get when they are enacting vast, new spending programs. Doesn’t matter if Obama’s plans are not just false, but stupid – as long as they fulfill the needs of liberal politics, its all good. All Obama cares about regarding the actual effects of his policies is that they either help or at least don’t hinder his re-election bid in 2012.

If we have 50% unemployment in 2013, that is entirely ok, as long as Obama is President. Regardless of what happens, Obama will be lauded to the skies for all time to come by liberals and, I’ll bet, he’ll get a Nobel Peace Prize for something or other, and be proposed for UN Secretary General…Obama is set, as long as he gets re-elected in 2012 (the one nearly unpardonable sin in Liberalism is to lose an election – Carter took more than 20 years to climb out of the liberal blacklist after his loss in 1980; Gore had a quicker rehabilitation because he was smart enough to latch on to the latest fad – global warming – while also having people argue that he didn’t really lose).

Our only hope is to secure enough representation of the people in Congress to thwart the worst aspects of Obamunism. In 2010, we’ll have our chance to take back at least a lot of influence in Congress – if we fight hard and elect people who are of us and for us, we’ll soon have policies designed to help us, rather than help liberal leaders and their pet interest groups. The ball is in our court, and we’ll see what we do with it.

Indeed:

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. – James Madison

I wonder if early elections will be called:

Hazel Blears dealt a potentially fatal blow to Gordon Brown’s political authority today when she announced her departure from Cabinet on the eve of crucial local and European elections.

It was the fourth ministerial resignation in 24 hours and the second at Cabinet level after the news yesterday that Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is also to stand down. It also came as Mr Brown’s critics in the Labour Party canvassed support for a round-robin letter calling on the Prime Minister to resign.

With Labour currently being monumentally unpopular, I wonder if the Labour party will be able to legitimately hold on to office if Brown is ousted? There certainly would be a strong argument in favor of a new poll of the electorate to determine whom shall be in control of Britain’s destiny in these dark times. For Labour, it would be a calculus of whether hanging on or resigning would be best- certainly, Labour is going to lose, and lose rather badly, when the next national elections are held…but would they lose less badly now, or later? Later passions might have cooled, or gotten worse. Tricky, tricky, tricky…and hopefully a harbinger of American events in November of 2010.

Is Obama an idiot?

…the flip side is I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam. And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.

We have 57 States and we’re one of the largest Moslem nations in the world…this from the supposed genius known as Barack Obama. Ok, I’ve played along for a while now, but I don’t want to play anymore – I want to know if Obama is just a moron who can read a speech well off the teleprompter. I want him given an IQ test, in public. I want to quiz him, personally, on some of the basic facts of history. I don’t trust this guy to know poop from shinola, anymore.

This certainly would be a rather large man-caused catastrophe:

U.S. counterterrorism officials have authenticated a video by an al Qaeda recruiter threatening to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border, the latest sign of the terrorist group’s determination to stage another mass-casualty attack on the U.S. homeland.

The video aired earlier this year as a recruitment tool makes clear that al Qaeda is looking to exploit weaknesses in U.S. border security and also is willing to ally itself with white militia groups or other anti-government entities interested in carrying out an attack inside the United States, according to counterterrorism officials interviewed by The Washington Times.

The officials, who spoke only on the condition they not be named because of the sensitive nature of their work, stressed that there is no credible information that al Qaeda has acquired the capabilities to carry out a mass biological attack although its members have clearly sought the expertise.

We’ve got AG Holder telling Georgia they can’t ensure voters are citizens, we’ve got a Secretary of Homeland Security who take a weak view of border security, and we’ve got a President who insists that making nice-nice will cause our enemies to give up the fight. Meanwhile, Mexican drug cartels daily send massive amounts of human and material contraband through our southern border. Anyone want to take bets on the chances these cartels will refuse to work with terrorists? Anyone want to take bets that American white supremacist groups won’t work with their fellow anti-Semites from al-Qaeda? Essentially, we’re back to 9/10 and we’re opening ourselves wide to another mass casualty terrorist attack. As long as we go down this road it isn’t a matter of if we’ll be hit, but when.

In the end, what we may end up doing is bringing the “overseas contingency operations” home. The murder of Private William Long might be a mere precursor to larger and bloodier deeds – and it will be unless Obama acts decisively to get his head out of the sand.

Aren’t you glad the stimulus worked?

U.S. private employers chopped more than half a million jobs in May, signaling job conditions remain tough and dashing some hopes the economy was not deteriorating as rapidly as thought, a report on Wednesday showed.

U.S. companies axed 532,000 jobs last month, though this was fewer than the revised 545,000 jobs lost in April, according to the ADP National Employment Report.

The April figure was originally a decline of 491,000.

The median forecast of economists surveyed by Reuters for the ADP Employer Services report, jointly developed with Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, was for a loss of 520,000 private-sector jobs in May.

Obama said the stimulus would prevent the unemployment rate from going over 8 percent. It hit 8.9% according to the last jobs report… So, once again, we spent a whole lot of money that did a whole lot of nothing… But hey, don’t blame me… I voted for McCain.

Nicholas Guariglia thinks so:

Things on the Korean peninsula are heating up by the hour. This latest round of nuclear and missile tests should come as no surprise, given President Obama’s non-response to North Korea’s missile provocations several weeks ago. This time, however, Pyongyang detonated a 20-kiloton device — the ground shook 130 miles away — which is an estimated 20 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb North Korea tested in 2006.

Predictably, the international community bemoaned with platitudinous reprimands — Obama: “gravely concerned”; the United Nations: “deeply worried” — and even more predictably, North Korea responded by threatening war against South Korea, disavowing the 1953 armistice, and swearing to continue production of nuclear weapons. Surprise, surprise…

…Having spent way more time in “diplomacy school” than anyone’s mental health should allow, I can personally attest: active diplomats, retired diplomats-turned-professors, and aspiring would-be diplomats refuse to recognize that some things in this world fall outside of their professional purview. Could we imagine any other profession — say, anesthesiology or lumberjacking — making that same bold claim about itself?

Kim has made a mockery of our diplomacy with him for nearly two decades. He soaked President Clinton for all he was worth, clicking champagne glasses with Madeleine Albright all the while perfecting the art of plutonium production. During the Bush administration, Kim reneged on every preliminary agreement before the preliminary agreement could get its trousers off. And now he’s manhandling Mr. Obama to the point of embarrassment…

…Enough is enough. Kim Jong Il has proven he will stop at nothing to produce and proliferate nuclear weapons, and that is a no-no. Diplomacy has failed. Talking for the sake of talking is not working. Serious powers ought to be emphasizing results, not process. “Soft power” is a problem cured by Cialis — not a national security strategy for North Korea. It’s time we started working to bring that twisted, Lilliputian, Chia Pet miscreant down.

Within the linked article are suggestions on ways and means of bringing Kim down – including allowing Japan to build nuclear weapons, a course of action which does not commend itself to me (call me paranoid, but I like a rich, powerful Japan which lacks nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers…just makes certain there’s no desire in Tokyo for a re-match). My view is that Kim’s regime is moribund already and we don’t need to push it to extinction – it totters that way, already. With Kim’s apparent selection of his youngest son as successor, we see the opportunity for a change…will the third Kim be able to exercise the ruthless power necessary to keep a starving population under subjection? I’m betting he won’t be able to do it – the sort of sick inhumanity required to maintain a Stalinist regime is very hard to transmit from one generation to another, and I’m figuring it can’t be done to a third generation in North Korea.

While I don’t expect the NK regime to collapse immediately upon the elder Kim’s demise, I do believe that the NK leadership will take stock and try to figure out a way to feather their nests, and then allow the regime to fall. It will be a complicated dance which will require the cooperation of China (and, likely, a complete US withdrawal from Korea), but the thing can be managed – once the elder Kim is dead. We hope, of course, that Kim will be sent for final judgment in a short span of time – but that might still be years away. Meanwhile, our job is to ensure against NK exporting nuclear capability or thinking that it can blackmail us with nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

This does call for diplomacy – but not the way Obama and Co view diplomacy. Diplomacy isn’t just talking and making nice. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Russia and England were at loggerheads and war was imminent. England had various demands which Russia had to accept or war would result. Russia was thinking that England was bluffing. The German Chancellor, Bismarck, wanted to find out if England really was – and so Bismarck went to meet with the British Prime Minister – Benjamin Disraeli – and talked and talked for hours…just relentlessly pressing Disraeli to come clean and admit that it was all a bluff, that England wouldn’t go to war…over and over again, Disraeli carefully and patiently kept re-stating the British position – Russia backs down, or there will be war. After a long while, Bismarck was 100% convinced that England wasn’t bluffing and advised the Russians – who couldn’t sustain a war against Britian – to back down. Peace secured – but only at the forthright and stout assurance that if one side didn’t back down, there would be war. We must tell NK to back down, at the threat of war, and make China understand that we are serious – NK gives up the nukes, or we fight. Once China is convinced we are deadly serious, they’ll get NK to cool it. End of crisis – and then we just wait for Kim to kick the bucket.

We’ll find out swiftly if Obama has any real sense of diplomacy – or whether he’s just another Chamberlain who thinks you can shake hands with barbarians and get them to love you.

As we all need a bit of repairs to our souls and courage in adversity:

O my God, in thee I trust, let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me.

Yea, let none that wait for thee be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

Make me to know thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me, for thou art the God of my salvation; for thee I wait all the day long.

Be mindful of thy mercy, O LORD, and of thy steadfast love, for they have been from of old.

Remember not the sins of my youth, or my transgressions; according to thy steadfast love remember me, for thy goodness’ sake, O LORD!

Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. – Psalm 25:2-9