I wonder if he'll bow again

Obama visits Saudi king to open a Muslim dialogue

By MARK S. SMITH, Associated Press Writer Mark S. Smith, Associated Press Writer – 26 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is beginning his latest bid to open a dialogue with the Muslim world by paying a call on Saudi King Abdullah, guardian of Islam's sacred sites in Mecca and Medina.

The monarch of Saudi Arabia plans to greet Obama at Riyadh's main airport with coffee and ceremony when he arrives Wednesday after an overnight flight from Washington.

Saudi Arabia is a stopover en route to Cairo, where Obama is to set deliver a speech that he's been promising since last year's election campaign — aiming to set a new tone in America's often-strained dealings with the world's 1.5 billion Muslims.

Many of those Muslims still smolder over Iraq, Guantanamo and unflinching U.S. support of Israel, but they are hoping the son of a Kenyan Muslim who lived part of his childhood in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, can help chart a new course. [No doubt he'll whisper in the King's ear: "Hey, I'm one of you guys!"]

"You know, there are misapprehensions about the West, on the part of the Muslim world," Obama said in a pretrip interview with the BBC. "And, obviously, there are some big misapprehensions about the Muslim world when it comes to those of us in the West." [It's all a big misunderstanding isn't it? Geeeze these people are too stupid to pour piss out of a boot!]

Aides cautioned that Obama was not out to break new policy ground in his Cairo speech, which follows visits to Turkey and Iraq in April and a series of outreach efforts including a Persian New Year video and a student town hall in Istanbul. And they said the president is not expecting quick results, even though the speech will be distributed as widely as possible.

"We don't expect that everything will change after one speech," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday. "I think it will take a sustained effort and that's what the president is in for." [But if you just keep apologizing for America, maybe they'll like us huh?]