Thus spake Obama...

When US President Barack Obama finally spoke at Cairo, he soothed as many nerves as he frayed. Dawn, in its editorial hailed the initiative. “ It wasn’t a speech one could imagine his predecessor delivering; indeed, the very idea of the speech was to change the perception of the US that had built up in Muslim lands during the Bush presidency. What matters most to improving the US’s standing in the Muslim world is what it does going forward — a fact Obama acknowledged frankly... it was a sweeping message that tried to show a softer, gentler side of the US, one that emphasised similarities and opportunities and not divisions with the Muslim world. But as President Obama noted, ‘No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust.’ At the very least though, the speech was yet more evidence that the US has put behind it the roughest edges of the Bush years.”

The News editorial added: “None can deny that President Obama is a rhetorician the like of which America has not seen for decades. Both Clinton nd Kennedy would find him hard to match for sheer eloquence and elegant phraseology that on the surface is free of ambiguity. His address was a model of its kind, and was received by an audience who at some points cheered and clapped not unlike those who attended the election rallies that eventually put President Obama where he is today. He knows how to work an audience and from the outset his speech was littered with ‘applause points’ and phrases that were crafted with tomorrow’s headlines in mind. The biggest ovation by far was for what he said to Israel, and here he really did speak very differently to any of his predecessors. No American president has ever gone out of his way to reach out to the Muslim world in the way that President Obama has. We applaud that. But our applause is discreet rather than rapturous for these are as yet mere words.”