Why are you so focused on Hamas?

Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India all have very powerful organizations (in some cases their government) as well as independent clerics who use hateful propaganda to give them power. Barack Obama is not the messiah, and just because he is president doesn’t mean these power hungry individuals will stop using propaganda to gain power.

Whether you are willing to accept it, Al Qaeda is a collection of fundamentalists who have been raised on this hateful propaganda. There are no secret Al Qaeda "keggers" where they all discuss how great Obama is, and how they now have to stop hating America and the Jewish people because the United States elected a man with Hussein as his middle name.

Through out most of the world where Al Qaeda gains its support there is no free press and the people who control the flow of information use it as a weapon to gain power. These people are not going to be trying to paint a balanced image of Barack Obama, and they’re not looking to make the United States look all that good.

Once again:

"Can you really discuss Al Qaeda without a consideration of the fundamentalist Islamic countries where it resides?"

I'm not disagreeing with you and not claiming that Obama is the messiah. But you overestimate exactly how much control those groups have over the media. They do have a very strong influence over the media, but people have access to a huge number of different sources with the spread of media like the internet.

Its not like it is in 1984. For one, those groups familiarity with technology isn't at the level where they can unilaterally block the influx and outflow of media that easily. Frankly, they just aren't smart enough to do it. China has more control over the media in some ways than any of the groups you are mentioning.