The New Bush Doctrine: "See You Next Week"
by Arianna Huffington

Did you catch the following through-the-looking-glass exchange regarding President Bush’s appeal to the Israelis to withdraw immediately from the West Bank?

“I don’t think that he meant exactly to say, ‘Just get out,’” said Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben- Eliezer on ABC this Sunday.

“But he said ‘without delay,’” replied an incredulous George Stephanopoulos.

“Yes, but I don’t think that he meant that,” insisted Ben Eliezer.

This stunning refusal to take the president of the United States at his word prompted National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, on her own round of the Sunday talk shows, to admonish the world “not to parse the president’s words.” But that’s precisely what the world is doing -- and with good reason.

The president, after all, has been building quite a record of full-blooded rhetoric and anemic follow-through. One might even say it’s starting to become his MO.
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The moral simplifier
Bush is ill-suited for a peacekeeping role in the Middle East
by Molly Ivins

The worst news I've read lately is several reports quoting people close to Bush saying, "He feels in his gut ..." He feels in his gut it is his mission in life to fight terrorism. He has a bad gut reaction to Arafat. Trust me on this, when Bush starts thinking with his gut, we're in big trouble.

Let me say for the umpteenth time, George W. is not a stupid man. The IQ of his gut, however, is open to debate. In Texas, his gut led him to believe the death penalty has a deterrent effect, even though he acknowledged there was no evidence to support his gut's feeling. When his gut, or something, causes him to announce that he does not believe in global warming -- as though it were a theological proposition -- we once again find his gut ruling that evidence is irrelevant. In my opinion, Bush's gut should not be entrusted with making peace in the Middle East.
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thanks to Cursor