It's time for Obama to speak to Al Jazeera

Not my words, but those of Richard Grenell, spokesman for the last four U.S. Ambassadors to the United Nations.

there is no better way to bring the American message of democracy and hope to 200 million Arab households than to speak directly and unfiltered to the network they are watching.

That the Bush administration went out of its way to demonise this network, perhaps even to try to destroy it - is now common knowledge.

Tariq Ayoub, Zuheir Iraqi, Tayseer Allouni and Sami Al Hajj have been the most visible faces of that policy.