But I am somebody who is very anxious to have the Afghan government and the Pakistani government have the capacity to ensure that those safe havens don’t exist. And so it, I think, will be an important reminder that we have no territorial ambitions in Afghanistan; we don’t have an interest in exploiting the resources of Afghanistan. What we want is simply that people aren’t hanging out in Afghanistan who are plotting to bomb the United States.

Obama said this in an interview with NPR (transcript.)  He actually says “hangin’ out” but the transcriber apparently wanted to maintain an air of formality and wrote “hanging.”  You can hear it here, around the 12:30 mark.  He chuckles a bit when he says it.

These are conspicuoulsy different ways for a President to talk, especially about something as serious as terrorism.  It says something about the man himself and it also draws a sharp contrast with Bush, whose standard catch phrase at these moments would be “rout out the terrorists.”

Previous installment in the series.

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