This appeared on PBS's "News Hour with Jim Lehrer"
<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/> on Friday, 2009.Feb.27. I
taped it on VHS from re-play the next morning at 4 AM, then
transcribed it later after I got some sleep.
(I added the Biblical-style verse numbering myself during
 trascribing, to make it easy to refer to individual verses.)

* PBS News Hour commentator: But today at Camp Lejeune,
North Carolina, the new Commander in Chief told 2000 U.S.
Marines, it's time to transition [sic] most U.S. forces out.

* Obama:
(1) The strategy is grounded in a clear and achievable
goal shared by the Iraqi people and the American people:
(2) An Iraq that is soveregn, stable, and self-reliant.
(3) Here's what we will not do: We will not let the pursuit
of the perfect stand in the way of achievable goals.
(4) We cannot rid Iraq of every single individual who
opposes America or sympathizes with our adversaries.
(5) We cannot police Iraq's streets indefinitely until they
are completely safe, nor can we stay until Iraq's union is
perfect.
(6) We cannot sustain indefinitely a committment that has
put a strain on our military and will cost the American
people nearly a trillion dollars.


* My critique:
The only part I find objectionable is verse (4).

If somebody takes up arms against us, or conspires with
others in planning to take up arms, then it would be nice to
get such a person out of Iraq, and if we can't do so then
it's a failure to achieve perfection.

Likewise it would be short of perfection if we failed to get
rid of anyone who "gives aid and comfort" to our enemies,
specifically by sending them military equipment or money to
buy military equipment to be used against us, or training
recruits to fight against us, or engaging in espionage in
direct support to those who take up arms against us, etc.

But IMO it would be immoral to try to get somebody out of
Iraq just because they merely *oppose* America, such as by:
- running against a pro-American candidate in a election;
- distributing leaflets objecting to our presence in Iraq or our
   killing of innocent people in Pakistan or our polluting the
   environment or our "waterborarding" suspected terrorists at
   Guantanimo Bay;
- writing "letters to the editor" regarding such issues;
- posting Web pages that are critical of our policies;
- funding anyone who does any of those activities-of-opposition;

For Obama to even **think** that we would like to rid Iraq
of even *one* person just because he/she "opposes" America
(but doesn't take up arms or support those who do), would be
akin to the way Joseph Stalin thought, and acted.

And for Obama to think it'd be desireable to rid Iraq of
every last one of such people, and anything less is a
failure of perfection, is so grossly Stalinesque that I feel
Obama needs to immediately recant what he said.

This is a bigger issue than the Catholic bishop saying there
were no gas chambers and only half a million Jews were
killed in Hitler's Holocaust, because this is the Commander
in Chief expressing what he'd like to do with the most
powerful military in the World, not just some powerless
religious idiot "ruffling feathers". Do we want our
President, our Commander in Chief, even *starting* to think
like Stalin?? I say NO!!!

I hope Obama doesn't really think like that, that he merely
used very poor choice of words (both the word "oppose(s)"
instead of the "take(s) up arms" phrase, compounded by the
word "perfect" and phrase "every single individual"). If so,
he should explain what he really meant and seriously
apologize for his poor choice of words.

Friday, shortly after I heard the above part of his speech,
I turned away from the rest of what he was saying to call my
Congressional representative Anna Eshoo's office to request
that she listen to the speech herself
 (this was before I was able to make a VHS copy and transcribe the
  exact words Saturday morning) to check if I heard his apparent
  meaning by his words (in fact I had the words sightly wrong,
  "dislike" instead of "oppose", but close enough to mean nearly
  the same thing in the sample activities-of-opposition I listed
  above)
and determine whether his words seemed to mean what I
thought they meant (and still do close enough), and if so
then she needs to contact Diane Feinstein, a close friend of
Obama, who helped arrange his inauguration, and ask Diane to
likewise listen to his speech, and if she too agrees then
Diane needs to immediately contact Barack and explain the
problem and demand that he correct what he said, explaining
clearly what he really meant and the words he *should* have
used instead, and *also* formally apologize for his mistaken
wording.

And if Barack refuses to *both* explain and apologize, then
Anna Eshoo should introduce a formal Resolution of Congress
to rebuke Barack for his words and failure to remedy the
situation, and state clearly that the Congress disagrees
with him and wishes to state clearly "for the record", for
the whole world to hear, that our Government (at least the
Legislative branch) does *not* have a policy of getting rid
of anyone who opposes us, that we want to get rid of (or
merely disable) only those who actually take up arms against
us or conspire or aid those who do. Furthermore, we the Congress
of the United States of America formally beg Barack Obama
to:
- recant his words;
- explain his true meaning and offer better words that better
   reflect our American values in supporting dissenting opinion not
   just here but in democracies around the world;
- propose better words that he wished he had said in the first place;
- *never* do anything to indicate that he really did mean to get
   rid of anyone who merely "opposes" the USA, or he *will* be
   impeached promptly after he starts taking any such action.


** If anyone finds mistakes in my transcription from the audio
    track of the PBS News Hour excerpt, please let me know by
    regular SMTP e-mail right away. See tinyurl.com/uh3t and click
    on [Contact me] to get a Turing test that you must pass before
    learning of a disposable first-contact e-mail address to reach
    me.

** If anyone wishes to discuss my response, such as brainstorming a
    formal Resolution of Congress to submit to *many* of our
    Congressional representatives so that they can jointly
    introduce it in Congress (if Obama hasn't recanted etc. already
    by the time we get around to this joint effort), either send
    e-mail (as above), or discuss the issues publicly in a newsgroup
    to which I'll be posting this whole text later today (Feb.28).

** If anyone wishes to send a copy of this first-draft of
    transcribed speech and response to your own Congressional
    representative, please either use this text as-is and give me
    credit at the top and indicate your agreement at the bottom, or
    edit it to say what *you* want to say and cite my authorship
    of the original and show the URL where my original can be
    found. I.e. *don't* plagiarise (quote without credit to me,
    trying to take all the credit yourself).