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President Bush returned this week from the Middle East, where he toured with a three-point agenda: peace, Iran and oil. According to The Week's Susan Caskie, editorials from the region were all in agreement – thumbs down.
Does Susan Caskie know Arabic? I can say with great certainty that there is no newspaper in the Arab World, let alone Egypt, called "al-Haram" (meaning forbidden in a religious sense). I believe she meant to say "al-Ahram" (the Pyramids). She might also have mentioned that this is a government-owned newspaper.
I was really impressed that Egypt, Jordan and Saudi
Arabia are able to see through President Bush's
"smoke screen" concerning Iran, when so many
people in the U.S. aren't. He is the president of dust and ashes and has done this country great harm.
What an absolutely pathetic show. The presenter so obviously despises Bush and pitches his questions in such a way that all answers must shine the worst light on the president's actions.
I really laughed out loud when as he discussed how the President went around the Saudi Oil Minister to appeal directly to the King for increased production and of course was turned down. Hey idiot, Heads of State don't have to take their case to ministers of other states. What journalism school did you graduate from?
Had to turn the show off when they next turned to the Strait of Hormuz incident and were getting ready to quiz the famous Washington Post military affairs writer who has never yet gotten a story correct that had anything to do with the military.
I find it deeply ironic that, after excoriating the Pentagon for its failure to provide context for the U.S.-Iranian ship encounters in the Gulf, OTM fails to provide any perspective to Arab editorial comments on President Bush's trip.
At this point, the Administration's credibility in the Mideast may well be unsalvagable. But it is also true that Arab commentary routinely moves beyond criticism of virtually any American policy move -- and straight into negative stereotypes, disinformation, and outright demonization of the United States and the West.
Certainly there is balanced and incisive new coverage in the Middle East, but too often Arab media, either controlled or manicpulated by governments, engage in vituperative attacks whose main purpose is to deflect domestic dissent and channel public anger into international channels, i.e., the U.S.
Without any context for how American policy and presidential visits have been treated by Arab media in the past, OTM's report was both flawed, and worse, deeply uninformative.
George Bush's "missing year" was not spent on Earth. That is a fact.
Breaking news: President Bush enters and exits our world through closely guarded secret portals or "space" devices at Area 51 in Crawford, Texas!
Though it is uncertain whether George "Walker" Bush is an alien from an undisclosed world, or an innocent, albeit hapless and bumbling Earthling who has risen to dizzying heights of power aided by, and at the behest of, dark extraterrestrial forces, details are beginning to surface.
Details at http://www.bushisanalien.us
In this one instance I must agree with Furbol.
And in this one instance I must agree with Barbara.
The "thumbs down" link in the segment summary points to a blog commenting on international news. The relevant post within the blog to which the story refers is
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=15&entry_id=23421
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