Obama in Cairo, my advice

Because I love America so much, and because I care about my president, I would like to help Mr. Obama before he makes his speech to the "Muslim World" today. This is a pretty important thing to me because he's actually going to deliver this historic address mere minutes away from where I lived only last week. This knowledge of the neighborhood, along with my vast experience working with the Arab media, has given me, I feel, remarkable insight into the "pulse of the Arab street." So, without more delay, I give you my suggestion for what President Obama should say today.

President Obama:

"Thank you, thank you. It's great to be here at Cairo University today with such a diverse group of Egyptians. As I look out at this audience I see liberals, conservatives, even quite a few Ikhwan members. In fact, I haven't spoken in front of this many brothers since the last NAACP convention.

(hold for laughter)

But seriously, it's great to be in such a wonderful country. People are so friendly here, not like back home. On my cab ride over here - and by the way what do you guys think of these new white cabs, pretty nice huh? - anyway my driver...he told me that America was number one. And he wasn't even the first taxi driver today to tell me that. In fact, I think if I stay here another day, I can find all the people who have a favorable opinion of the US; because according to John Zogby and USA Today, it's only 14% of you.

(hold for laughter)

But I'm not going to let this discourage me and my mission. Partly because I bring a message of hope, and partly because I don't trust Zogby tracking polls. If we all trusted Zogby, John Kerry would be president and Hillary would have won the primaries...but neither of those things happened did they?....plus our internal polling shows that our approval rating is hovering around 70%, although we won't release crosstabs on that, you just have to take our word for it. Not that I look at polls of course, but you know, they're our there.

But back to my taxi ride. I talked to my driver about what he though about America. Apparently the government is bad but the people are good. So I guess he voted for Reagen.

(hold for laughter)

But what was so striking was when I asked him what were the issues that mattered to him most in life. And you know, they were the same things that matter to Americans as well: Affordable health care, education, a good job. See we tend to think in the US that every little action in the Arab world is a referendum on US policy, but I know things are quite a bit different then that. At the end of the day, the average Egyptian isn't worrying about Barack Obama, they're thinking about the same bread and butter, or aiesh and butter, issues that Americans are everyday. We tend to simplify US-Arab relations in a narrative that encourages the "Clash of Civilization" concept, but this is neither productive nor accurate. Most people in both our nations don't have time to hate people they've never even met, who live across the world; they're too busy taking their son to soccer practice.

So that's my take home message to you all today, yes we have our differences, and no they will not all be resolved, but we can all agree we deserve affordable health care. Sorry, I'm hoping that issue is as hot here as it is back in the US - it's really big in the US right now.

Thank you for your hospitality and your generosity, and goodnight.