Hisham Melhem's Obama Interview Coup

In trying to decide what my first substantive post should be, it seems to me that one of the prerogatives of blogging should be the ability to congratulate an old friend on a remarkable coup. I refer to the journalistic headline of the week: Al-Arabiya TV's interview with President Barack Obama, pulled off by Hisham Melhem, long one of the most accomplished Arab journalists in Washington.

Melhem talks about how they got the interview here; you can read the English-language transcript here; clearly Obama's intention of sending a signal to the Arab/Muslim world explained the timing, and the fact that al-Arabiya is seen in Washington as less "anti-American" than al-Jazeera may have helped them get the story. (I think that al-Jazeera has a generally bad rap among Americans who've never watched it, but that's my own view.)

Hisham and I go back to days studying at Georgetown in grad school a few more years ago than either of us likes to admit, and have known each other through varying identities in the Middle East-related community here for most of the time since. So let me congratulate him on a professional coup and also recommend anyone who hasn't read the interview go over to al-Arabiya and take a look. I plan to call attention to important posts on other websites frequently.