Obama: The New Sadat?

No, I don't mean he's going to make peace with Israel. He's already done that. I'm referring to his ostensibly private conversation with Tory leader David Cameron, in which the two men discussed their over-scheduled lives. "Actually the most important thing you need to do is to have big chunks of time during the day when all you're doing is thinking," Obama said, wisely.

This brought to mind something one of Anwar Sadat's aides once told me. He said that Sadat would often spend his afternoon walking alone along the Nile. His staff had things for him to do -- staffs always do -- but he insisted on having time to think. And it was on these walks, the aide told me, that Sadat decided to go to Jerusalem, and change the world.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2008/07/obama-the-new-sadat/8609/