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Katie Connolly
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Jun 4, 2009 05:48 PM
I've just spend the last couple of days chasing one Barack Obama around Riyadh and Cairo. It probably goes without saying that I've seen some pretty cool stuff, so I'd like to share what I can with you, faithful Gaggle readers. I must stress that I have no professional photography skills, and I don't own a fancypants camera. What follows is just a few snapshots to give you a sense of what I've seen tailing the leader of the free world. (Photo Diary is after the jump.)
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Katie Connolly
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Jun 4, 2009 07:29 AM
Obama's long awaited speech to the Muslim world delivered on the promises of his advisers. It was neither dramatic nor filled with romantic pledges. He tackled thorny issues, but only to a point. Coming just days after Osama Bin Laden released a new message in which he accused the President of inflaming tensions with the Muslim world, Obama's speech, entitled "A New Beginning", focused on the need for global cooperation in the advancement of peace. "This cycle of suspicion and discord must end," Obama said emphatically. And later, "as the Holy Koran tells us, “Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.” That is what I will try to do – to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart."
(You can read the full text of the speech here.)
The speech was streamed live over the internet on the White House website and on TV networks worldwide. Capitalizing on their tech savvy operation, the Administration organized for alerts and excerpts to be texted to supporters in four languages - Persian, Urdu, Arabic and English - and links were sent out via Facebook and MySpace. Supporters could text their reactions back to the White House, and some will be posted on the White House blog.
In the speech, Obama touched on his own biography only briefly before outlining a series of challenges to be overcome. References to Islam were well recieved by the audience. Some of his biggest applause lines came when he mentioned specific tenets of the faith. Twice audience members yelled "I love you" to the President. But there was a palpable silence as the President addressed perhaps the most difficult issue before him - Middle East peace. "Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and 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," he said. "It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered."
But tension soon gave way to approval and applause when President called on Israel to end settlements and emphatically acknowledged Palestine's need for security and prosperity. A section of the speech devoted to women's rights was all well received, with women in the audience cheering.
Obama is now meeting with regional journalists and will soon tour the Pyramids of Giza, which means it's time for your Gaggler to run to a van and wait. More on the speech and trip to come.
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Katie Connolly
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Jun 4, 2009 06:11 AM
The logistics of organizing an event like the President’s speech in Cairo today are mind boggling to say the least. While the White House is reluctant to give out planning details for security reasons, the scale of this undertaking is evident. Advance staffers swarm the city for weeks before the President arrives, tracing every step he’ll take. Nothing is left to chance. Everything – from who gets to ride in the motorcade and in what order, to how long it will idle in a parking lot - is negotiated with the host nation. Press advance staffers work to make sure that the media has access to every event possible - a luxury few other countries afford their press corps. This means that one plucky advance staffer has managed to organize a wireless internet connection at the Pyramids for the small group of reporters tasked with documenting the President’s tour (thanks Johanna!). Even details that seem straightforward require patient and persistent planning. For example, around twenty White House and State Department staffers were involved in organizing Egyptian visas just for the traveling press. (While that seems like an absurdly large number, if you’ve ever had to organized a visa yourself, you’ll understand why it so darned complicated to organize it for dozens of reporters, many of whom, like yours truly, are foreign born.)
Every step of a President’s international trip is carefully choreographed. The result, when you are traveling in his entourage, is that the experience feels very disconnected from reality. I’ve never been to Egypt and when I leave, it will hardly feel as though I really saw this ancient land. The view from the Presidential motorcade it’s extremely rarefied. We see manicured gardens and gilded palaces behind imposing iron gates. We speed past the poorer parts of town, whisked from one privileged site to another. The grit, the smells, the spontaneous color and voices – in short, the life of the city – is hidden away, with only carefully chosen aspects funneled into the President’s view.
One striking difference between this place and others I’ve visited while following the President is the distinct lack of ordinary well-wishers. When the President visits a U.S. city, or even during his trips to Europe, Mexico and Trinidad, the motorcade route is usually lined with residents eager to catch a glimpse of Obama. Often carrying signs or waving flags, they cheer wildly when he passes. But here, the city is in virtual shutdown. Residents were encouraged to stay home and watch the speech on TV. Many grumbled about the enormous disruption to the usually vibrant city, which is home to 18 million people. Even on arrival at the University, the campus seemed eerily quiet – no rowdy student fans in sight. The motorcade route is blocked entirely to traffic, and onlookers are held back behind human barricades many blocks away. The streets were lined with guards, standing at attention with ten or so feet between them. They faced away from the motorcade, rather than towards it, keeping alert for signs of trouble. The resulting visual was a jarring one: miles of empty road stretching out before speeding vans, peppered with the straight backs of armed servicemen.
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Newsweek
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Jun 4, 2009 04:41 AM
Our favorites this morning from around the web:
Before it becomes a national emergency...
In the midst of such
grand global problems, one congressman fires off a few letters on what
he thinks is a very pressing matter: lowering the minimum age for
teenage basketball players to enter the NBA (it's currently 19, he
thinks it should be lower). Although we must admit that he makes a
compelling point. (AP)
Hey congress, save your receipts
Taking a cue from embattled
politicos in the British House of Commons, Nancy Pelosi thinks that all
congressional expense reports should be publicly posted online. We
wonder which members of congress will risk unwanted suspicion by
raising an objection. (SF Chronicle)
International taunter on the verge of losing his footing
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly goes to bat to
protect the image of his country. But many of his constituents think
his brazen statements and alienating advocacy has had the opposite
effect, dragging his country behind in reputation, not to mention its
economy. It's why he may be poised to lose his re-election next week.
(Newsweek)
In hearings, Sessions to take a reminiscent stroll
We almost
missed this from yesterday. Republicans have a pretty hefty obligation
to critically question SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor during her
confirmation hearings. But one of them -- Jeff Sessions, the
newly-anointed ranking Republican on the judiciary committee -- has sat
in the same spot, nominated and rejected for a federal judgeship in
1986. For him, it'll bring an internal debate over how to be tough yet still
fair. (WaPo)
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Katie Connolly
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Jun 4, 2009 03:42 AM
Over the last few days, Administration officials have been carefully tamping down expectations of Obama's speech in Cairo this afternoon. They stressed that the speech alone won't be the catalyst for a change in relations between the U.S. and Muslim world, but rather it's part of an ongoing dialogue. There's been a lot of chatter in recent days about what to expect from the speech, what it might mean for both Americans and Middle East citizens.
As reporters, we hope the speech will be a punctuation mark, a moment where the narrative shifts. We hope that because it's a moment we can capture, an event we can point to, describe and explain. We want it to be Nixon goes to China, where a shift in the national psyche is perfectly encapsulated in a meeting, readily documented for posterity. But in reality international diplomacy moves slowly, and relations between America and an amorphous, diverse Muslim world are complex and shifting. Muslim nations and their dealings with America are hardly uniform - the relationships with Indonesia, Egypt and Iran for example are divergent, characterized by differences in leadership, direction and strategic value, as well as historical idiosyncrasies.
Cable news can hype expectations for the speech all it likes, but is anyone really expecting a speech alone to profoundly alter these complicated sets of relations? We've been warned there won't be any major policy announcements or dramatic promises. Instead, much like his speech on race during last year's election, expect Obama to tackle thorny nuanced issues with his trademark erudition. Look for him to be both professor - with didactic explanations of the historical contours of the relationship - and inspirer - making elegant references to Muslim intellectual and cultural contributions to both American and the world at large. These will likely serve as springboards for hopeful musings about the common greatness of humanity and our ability to overcome challenges. Like the race speech, this will be part of slow process of tinkering with cultural perceptions and norms, in the expectation that the conversation will evolve over time.
Perhaps the only circumstance that would signal a dramatic shift in relations is the downside scenario, that is, if Obama screws up. A poorly executed reference, a cultural inaccuracy, a lack of recognition of U.S. responsibility for its more contentious actions, all these things could be a serious setback to his young Presidency. After all, Obama is still a new face on the international scene, relatively unknown to Muslim leaders across the globe. His personal narrative and history with Islam may provide with this a unique entrée, but his lack of established personal connections with Muslim leaders means that he'll have to proceed carefully in this already cautious courtship. He'll also need to veer away from the rhetoric of his predecessor. Promises of liberty and freedom ring hollow in this region, for both cultural and political reasons. Obama will need to demonstrate a more supple understanding of Muslim world's interest in recognition and justice.
That's surely a lot of pressure for the President, knowing that the potential downsides will outweigh the positives. If he slips up, who knows how long he'll have to deal with the consequences. But even if all goes perfectly and the speech is embraced in the Muslim world, he still won't have anything tangible to take home. Lucky for him, the odds of it going well are in his favor. And it wouldn't be the first time his words have, slowly but deliberately, changed history's course.
