Obama is quoted approvingly by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times today as saying: "We're just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working -- and nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East." Obama adds, talking about other political figures in the Mideast: "Stop saying one thing behind closed doors and saying something else publicly."
There are many things wrong with this, but let's take what seems to me the most glaring:
At his first news conference, Obama was asked by long-time White House correspondent Helen Thomas: "do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?" This was an obvious reference to Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal.
Obama replied: "I don't want to speculate".
Obama professes a compulsion to tell "the truth" and urges political actors in the region to be forthright, but he takes a ridiculous shortcut on the most crucial security matter possible.
Insult to injury: Obama hasn't taken a question from Thomas since she asked him this.
[originally published at husseini.org on June 3, 2009]