If you want to read a really acerbic critique of Barack Obama’s speech last week in Libya, take a look at Adam Garfinkle’s interlinear blogpost in the American Interest blog. Just click on the footnote numbers and you can read his response to that part of the speech. It’s a followup to his “down the rabbit hole” blogpost which I linked to last week. I don’t agree with all of Garfinkle’s points by any means, but he’s definitely worth reading. Perhaps especially by speechwriters: it seems to me that when you’re writing a speech for an officeholder or politician, you should keep in mind how an acerbic and hostile critic would respond to each phrase.