Do you think it is possible to get a straight answer on a cease fire from the Palestinians factions in power? Truth and hard facts don’t come easy to the Palestinians.

You can say “Well maybe Abbas isn’t really a man of peace.” *without* implicitly calling the Nobel committee a bunch of dupes.

I have seen no less than a dozen people make an issue of Bush using this phrase.

I know that a lot of folks are deeply mistrustful of Islam, but as long as men like Allawi risk their lives for a new future for their country I don’t feel comfortable condemning a whole religion.

That is a great photo. Almost got me to feel some empathy for the man.

Your question is making my head hurt, nothing like summing things up on occasion. Rick’s answer “hope for the best, prepare for the worst” is the most practical. But…

When the US moved to initiate some form of democracy in Germany and Japan we were at least dealing (for the most part) with a literate populace, at a minimum the ability to read and write in a common language. This obviously had a great deal to do with “their ability to learn” as Rick states above. I think the challenge we face is in great measure finding a way to communicate with the vast majority of islamic believers (at least in the madrasas of the ME) who can neither read nor write, and if they are able to read the only ‘literature’ they have been exposed to is the koran. I suppose in some way this is similar to the situation in Europe before Gutenberg, all common knowledge was ‘oral’, with the result that the church pretty much had a lock on who knew what and how much. I’m getting way above ‘my’ writing ability here, so let me sum up. If we can’t communicate, we can’t change. Then….

Well whatever… I read the speech and I liked it and if their is no reference to the Koran why bitch about it?

Like I said, these things are individual and we either respond or don’t.

I liked it and we are still talking about it. That is more than can be said for most of these speeches days after the fact.

There was no verse from the Koran. Just as there is no rejection of the concept of universal liberty/freedom by WFB, Noonan or me. Their argument (and mine) is that the speech is a poor articulation of the principles underlying the ideals. They do a much better job of separating the speech from the man delivering it than has anyone here in the mixture of ad hominem and mind reading that undergirds the comments to this point.

Richard,

One hopes for the best while preparing for the worst. Act on the presumption of the ability to learn but don’t bet the farm on it.

Rick ó We have two possible assumptions. Either Islam is capable of existing or learning to exist as part of a civilized, modern world, or it isn’t and must be exterminated. Which do we act on?

I disagree. I think the speech is better when read than listened to and mybe the inclusion of a verse from the Koran was not just about PC but about the premise that all peoples desire to be free.

I liked the speech myself and I think maybe the folks who found it muddled or whatever are the ones with the problem. After all maybe it is their perception and not mine that is at fault. I know Mort Kondracke said he thought it was one of the best he had heard.

I think it was a good speech and I also think it is sad that people who belong to Lincoln’s party find the concept of ending tyranny to be “confused”.

The State of the Union speech is coming maybe in that speech Noonan and Buckley will get the laundry list they desire.

Sure WFB and Peggy Noonan, among others, have some gripes about W’s speech. Perhaps it was too radical for their conservative sensibilities. Perhaps it didn’t meet their rhetorical standards. Fine. But the political bottom line is that most Americans got the message, and today, despite a media onslaught of negativity, most Americans support the President.

W is a wily politician, but he’s also a gambler. He’ll take political risks, gambling that at the end of the day he can keep his base solid. So far that’s been the case as evidenced by the largest popular vote tally in history.

That’s why the mullahs need to be worried. It’s not 1968. Uncle Walter is an irrelevant old fart. Today, W has the political muscle to put American might behind his vision. I wouldn’t call his hand unless I had a flush. The mullahs don’t.