Quick Clarification

Just wanted to clarify something that stood out as I scrolled through my posts this week. I wrote a post earlier this week that was seriously critical of Obama's foreign policy. This piece was written in anticipation of Thursday's Cairo speech - which left me with a very different feeling (as my post about the speech probably made clear) than Obama's earlier trips abroad did as well as his approach to foreign policy heretofore. I have my serious qualms with Obama's foreign policies - closing Gitmo without a plan and with bad facts; a predisposition toward leniency with Iran that I just don't think time allows; a hypocritical continuation of Bush's counterterrorism policies without paying any credit to the Bush admin; and a general lack of consistent principles, or putting politics over principles (was going to release further detainee abuse photos, then changed his mind etc.). In the interest of brevity I'll stop there.

However, I feel like Obama's speech in Cairo, as well as some of his subsequent commentary (telling Ahmadinejad to visit a concentration camp and to stop "denying history") were in a way a turning point. I think Obama is feeling more comfortable in his position as Commander-in-chief, surely it takes a few months or more to get one's "groove" right as President. I think Obama is beginning to find his, and I do like aspects of what I see. Anyway, just wanted to clarify why one post talks about the Bambi-fication of our foreign policy, and the next mildly gushes about his Cairo speech. They are slightly exclusive positions so clarification was in order.