How sophisticated:

During his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama promised a new, positive approach to the Muslim world, including "America Houses" offering English lessons in Muslim countries and an "America's Voice Corps" to spread the truth about American values. Mr. Obama's aides have said he will unveil the new approach with a speech in a Muslim capital during his first 100 days in office. But Israel's invasion of Gaza, and Mr. Obama's studied silence about it, threatens to short-circuit his plans for an American image makeover.

See? Because if they knew that we let our women vote, our Jews practice, and our homosexuals live - then they'd like us more. Now you might say "but anti-American propaganda already includes that stuff as reasons to hate the West, which implies that there are fundamental ideological differences between us and Islamist fanatics that the State Department can't do much about." But since State has already spent part of the huge influx of cash that they're getting under Obama - and to the extent that they're giddy about asinine new public diplomacy initiatives - it's better to ignore those details.

USAID is also in for a huge financial boost, by the by, and you know what that means.

And finally, from that same NYT article:

Critics abroad and at home have noted that Mr. Obama's "one president at a time" policy did not prevent the president-elect from speaking out against the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, in November, when he condemned what he called the "hateful ideology" of militant Islam.

That's a good point. Why couldn't Obama issue a pro-forma statement with something like "I unequivocally expressed my opposition to Hamas during the campaign. Furthermore, as a Democrat who supports the bipartisan consensus regarding the importance of the US-Israel relationship, I stand behind President Bush's efforts to establish a lasting ceasefire without compromising the security of our most important Middle Eastern ally." That would go a long way toward dispelling what Jim Geraghty rightly called the "strange and ominous evasiveness" of the surrogates tasked with explaining his position.

References and previously after the jump...