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| Washington University in St. Louis News & Information > WUSTL in the News >
Analysis: Obama tries evenhanded approach There he was, in the heart of the Muslim world, explaining the American mindset to Muslims and the world of Islam to Americans, with the bearing of a college professor. In his long-awaited speech at the University of Cairo, President Barack Obama took a measured, on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand approach to some of the most charged issues on the planet. There were no new policy pronouncements on the Mideast, Afghanistan, nuclear weapons or other flashpoints in the Muslim world. ... "The striking thing about Obama is that whenever he speaks to a crisis, without being highly emotional or highly charged, he manages to make it seem like we're more open to reason than we really are, more willing to move ahead than we really are," said Wayne Fields, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis and expert on presidential rhetoric. "It's a combination of hopefulness and a kind of calmness that's at the core of this kind of rhetoric." That can be soothing in the short term, but ultimately feeds the hunger for concrete changes. "Words matter a lot," the University of Maryland's Telhami said approvingly of the president's speech. "The problem for him will be that with every speech, he raises the expectations higher by raising the issues that people care about. ... They care much more about what the United States ultimately does."  Appeared in: Click headline below to view news story as originally posted on an external Web site.
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| Media Assistance:
Gerry Everding Exec. Director of News and Electronic Communications gerry_everding@wustl.edu (314) 935-5230 Subject Matter Experts:
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Related Topics: Revised: Tuesday, June 9, 2009 
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