A STRANGE APPEAL – AT 11:41 A.M. ET:  In a manner befitting the president of a student government, the president is appealing directly to the Iranian people, who have absolutely no power.  From AP:

In a fresh appeal directly to the Iranian people, US President Barack Obama says in an online video that the United States wants more educational and cultural exchanges for their students and better access to the Internet to give them a more hopeful future.

Isn't that precious?  We give them internet.  They send us nuclear explosions.  Fair deal, don't you think?

In the video, the second of his presidency directed at Iran, Obama said that the United States' offer of diplomatic dialogue still stands but that the Iranian government has chosen isolation. He said the US believes in the dignity of every human being.

Unfortunately, that belief in "the dignity of every human being" seems to include dictators.

Even though the United States and Iran continue to have differences, Obama said, "we will sustain our commitment to a more hopeful future for the Iranian people — for instance, by increasing opportunities for educational exchanges so that Iranian students can come to our colleges and universities and through our efforts to ensure that Iranians can have access to the software and Internet technology that will enable them to communicate with each other and with the world without fear of censorship."

So lovely.  So irrelevant.  Obama has gotten absolutely nowhere with Iran.  This must be some kind of consolation prize.  We've seen, in the administration's Israel bashing in the last few weeks, just how amateurish this crew is.  Video appeals like this might get Obama some points in the warm 'n fuzzy part of the job, but little else.

It's been a rough road for Obama, and there have been few signs Teheran is loosening its grip after bloody elections marred with allegations of fraud. And efforts to impose new sanctions have been slow to find unified support from US allies.

They call that the bottom line.  It's a concept Obama really doesn't understand. 

I wonder what those Iranians who see this video will really think of our president.  You'll recall that, during the insurrections in Iran, some demonstrators carried banners asking, "Obama, where are you?"  Now they know where he is.  He's in the Oval Office designing cultural exchanges.

March 20, 2010