Word: interviews
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Obama's aides cut Melhem off before he could finish all his questions, explaining that the President had a dinner date with his wife. But it seems that in the Obama White House, Arab reporters stand a good chance of getting more scoops. As they concluded the interview and shook hands, Melhem recalls, Obama told him, "There will be more...
Whether it was because of the chemistry between the men or Obama's scripted intention, Melhem came away with an interview that amounted to an unprecedented reach-out to the Muslim world by a U.S. President. Unprompted, Obama spoke about his own Islamic connections, noting that some of his family members are Muslim and that he had lived in the largest Muslim country, Indonesia. "My job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect," Obama said...
Melhem had come close to an Obama interview before. He nearly snared a Q&A during then candidate Obama's visit to the Middle East last summer. Disappointed but hardly deterred, he pressed his source network again after Obama's November election victory. "I began pushing hard when I realized that he was going to be serious about the Muslim world in the first part of his Administration," Melhem told TIME. The White House certainly knew who they were dealing with...
Melhem, long a vocal critic of U.S. Middle East policy, says he was touched by Obama's conciliatory tone and references to his Muslim roots. "You can feel the authenticity about him," he says. "The interview was his way of saying, 'There is a new wind coming from Washington.' Barack Obama definitely sees the world differently from a man named George W. Bush...
...None of that is to say, however, that the Administration is going to buy India's line that the U.S. should butt out of Kashmir. The President himself plainly believes there's a role for the U.S. to play. In an interview with TIME's Joe Klein in October, Obama said that "working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve the Kashmir crisis in a serious way" would be a critical task. The key, he said, was to "make the argument to the Indians, 'You guys are on the brink of being an economic superpower, why do you want...