Obama's Speeches Setting a High Bar for Results

Cairo Address Raises Pressure to Carry Through on Several Initiatives; Domestic-Policy Goals Face Crucial Period

By JONATHAN WEISMAN and LAURA MECKLER
WSJ

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama returned home from abroad Sunday to find that his own oratory laying out an ever-more-ambitious agenda, both in foreign and domestic policy, is ratcheting up demands for concrete achievements.

"Expectations are rising with every speech," said Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, who was consulted by White House aides on the president's speech to Muslims in Cairo on Thursday. "And the more issues you articulate, the more pressure you create to produce actual policies and achievements."

While the president is popular among many Europeans, he returned from his second trip to Europe with little more progress on key issues than he achieved during his first trip there in April, including over committing additional troops for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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