Tim already posted about this interview, but I just wanted to point out that this is what an effective taunt looks like:
Q How concerned are you and -- because people sense that you have a different political discourse. And I think, judging by (inaudible) and Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden and all these, you know -- a chorus --
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I noticed this. They seem nervous.
Q They seem very nervous, exactly. Now, tell me why they should be more nervous?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that when you look at the rhetoric that they've been using against me before I even took office --
Q I know, I know.
THE PRESIDENT: -- what that tells me is that their ideas are bankrupt. There's no actions that they've taken that say a child in the Muslim world is getting a better education because of them, or has better health care because of them.
In my inauguration speech, I spoke about: You will be judged on what you've built, not what you've destroyed. And what they've been doing is destroying things. And over time, I think the Muslim world has recognized that that path is leading no place, except more death and destruction.
It's so much more effective than "bring it on," because it has the virtue of being accurate. Al-Qaeda has no social service wing; they're bent on destruction. It's not that it's the only thing they're good at; it's that it's the only thing they do. And rather than antagonize them by puffing himself up, Obama slips the knife in quietly and twists it with the truth: you haven't made the lives of Muslims any better. An effective response to this statement, as opposed to "bring it on," isn't violence, because Obama has acknowledged al-Qaeda's capacity for violence. He's not questioning that. He's questioning their ability to do anything else. Everyone knows the loudest dude in the room is the one with something to prove.
-- A. Serwer
