The Laughing Wolf

What A Speech

One nice thing about being under the weather a bit was that I got to watch the President’s speech this morning. I will leave detailed analysis to others, but the key points as I saw them were:

1. A commitment to international operations and organizations, provided they do what they are supposed to do. This was a warning to the UN that it needs to get relevant. Note the NATO comments and context
2. A warning to European leaders (France, Germany, others) that they need to shape up and fly right.
3. A clear message to Arafat that he is gone as far as the U.S. is concerned
4. A clear message to Israel that certain things need to change there too
5. A reminder to all of what is at stake, and what must be done to deal with various integrated problems. Some nice historical analogies in there, subtle but powerful.

Quite a speech. The implications here are profound. Now we see how the Old Media tries to spin it, and how Old Europe and the terrorist clique try to spin and wail. Anyone who does not get that this was a major policy speech is dismissed from class, and sent down a grade or two. Interesting.

LW