Obama at the UN

President Obama gave a 38-minute speech at the United Nations.  It's a good one. 

It could have been a real barnburner.

Reading the text while listening to the President speak, I flash to Teddy Roosevelt. (I can really only imagine what Teddy sounded like. We have been watching - only thru Episode 3 so far - the new Ken Burns' documentary on PBS "The Roosevelts," and while there is a lot of video suggesting Teddy was a pretty forceful speaker, there is not much audio.) 

As I read the text, I keep "hearing" Teddy deliver it with gusto.  The speech is excellent. Hearing it would be so much better if Obama would "pick it up" a bit.  Pick up the pace. Show a litle fire, a litle heat.  Obama's rhetorical habit of verbally falling off a cliff with the last word or two of a sentence is frustrating.  If you are not reading along with the text and just listening to him, you might not understand some of the things he says, because he gets so quiet at the end of almost every sentence. 

Anyway, on a different level, we won't have peace in the Middle East, or with Islam, until Muslims begin to conveniently "forget", or simply agree to overlook, some of the more, shall we say, distateful and inconvenient passages in the Koran, much like Christians have learned to do regarding the Bible.

Christians long ago started de-emphasizing the more brutal passages in the Bible. All that slavery, rape and killing, let's just kinda forget that.  Muslims have to learn to do this with the Koran.  There is really no need to kill the infidels.  Women don't have to be clothed from head to toe. You can do it, Muslims!

At this point in time, however, Obama's failure to utter "Allah" even once during the speech will not be viewed favorably by those religious freaks cutting off heads in the Middle East.

The President's speech:

Just in case the video does not appear, you can watch the speech AND read along with the text by clicking here. Don't live in fear.