I won’t get into the substance of Obama’s comments–others are doing that across the web–but I am curious whether the choice of al-Arabiya signals the administration’s abandonment of the U.S.-funded al-Hurra satellite channel. Al-Arabiya is the second-most popular channel in the Arabic-speaking Middle East (after al-Jazeera), so audience reach was not the only factor Obama’s handlers considered when determining on which Arabic satellite station he should appear.