Let Women Wear the Hijab: The Emptiness of Obama's Cairo Speech  —  I know many will gush over President Obama's Cairo speech and I'm likely swimming against the tide of the media and my fellow Democrats and progressives.  But reading the transcript, I was struck by two things:

Obama's Cairo speech: Surprisingly good  —  I didn't get the chance to watch Barack Obama's Cairo speech live, although I'm sure that it will be chopped up on YouTube within the next couple of hours.  Instead, I read the full text posted by Andrew Malcolm, as well as Andrew's commentary …

Awful  —  What an awful speech.  Among the problems, one was the president's claim that there are “nearly seven million American Muslims in our country today.”  The true number is probably less than half that, as this page details.  —  Even when Obama was trying to be nice to Israel …

Addressing Muslim World, Obama Calls for New Start  —  CAIRO — President Obama pledged on Thursday to “seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world,” imploring America and the Islamic world to drop their suspicions of each other and forge new alliances …

A Meeting in Damascus  —  About an hour after Barack Obama's excellent Cairo speech, I met with Khaled Meshal, the leader of Hamas, at his office here to talk about the speech and the Israel-Palestine conflict.  We spoke for several hours and I will have a fuller accounting of our conversation in my print column next week.

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON A NEW BEGINNING  —  PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you very much.  Good afternoon.  I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions.  For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning …