From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's on the media.

Bob Garfield is away.

I'm Brooke Gladstone, and by the end of this week, it became known simply as the speech.

A speech like perhaps no other.

The whole world is going to be talking about this speech most of the day today, and we're going to continue talking about it.

Now people are looking for something more concrete. How he does that, I don't know. I think this is sort of the day today, and we're going to continue talking about it. Now people are looking for something more concrete.

How he does that, I don't know.

I think that's sort of the Mount Everest of speeches.

Wow, it was an important speech, and expectations were high,

even as the White House worked to tamp them.

Watching the speech itself, you got the sense that every word had a cost-benefit analysis behind it.

For example, by saying this...

Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country

and around the world.

Obama prompted this from Fox and Friends.

And the constant apologizing about America to engrandize

his own sort of cult of personality around the world, I don't think is helpful. But obviously,

it drew a very different response from his audience in the region. For every topic he touched,

the Iraq war, the Israeli settlements, nuclear weapons. Some were thrilled,

others angered. And for still others, the speech was notable for words not said. No mention of

the human rights records of the Saudi Arabian or Egyptian regimes. Consider the cost-benefit

analysis that went into that. And then there was this. I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years,

...