President Obama's speech before the 2012 AIPAC Policy Conference (VIDEO)

The President's speech before the United Nations (VIDEO)

I'm already surprised some freak on the right didn't wig out over the President's pronunciation of "Jakarta".




The first half of the speech is okay, mezzo-mezzo. It was the second half, where the poetry was, that picked up some steam. He tried to lay out of a vision of what will happen in the days to come should we choose peace over conflict.

Now, can you imagine Sarah Racist Palin in front of that podium?

Yeah, neither can I.

Mideast Peace Talks are showing...progress?!?!?

Excuse me?  What was that you said?, I ask my hometown Newspaper.

Why, yes says the Washington Post.  Things are happening, if only a little:

Israeli and Palestinian leaders are delving very quickly into some of the most difficult issues dividing them, the U.S. special envoy to the region said in an unusually upbeat report Wednesday, even as Israeli fighters bombed a smuggling tunnel and Palestinian militants launched mortar rounds into southern Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu greeted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at his Jerusalem residence, with a Palestinian flag as a backdrop, for two hours of talks that also included Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. special envoy George J. Mitchell. The two leaders had met in Egypt for more than two hours Tuesday, also accompanied by Clinton and Mitchell.

"They are serious, they mean business," Mitchell told reporters afterward. "I will say that the two leaders are not leaving the tough issues to the end of their discussions," he said. "We take this as a strong indicator of their belief that peace is possible."

This is the one story were, for me at least, the less coverage the better.