Dubya Moves The Goalposts Again

Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported the following in the New York Times yesterday (from here)…

…when Mr. Bush arrived in this Red Sea resort city on Saturday, he seemed cozy with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas; the two ended a quick photo opportunity by strolling down a stone walkway, holding hands. And the president was also back to making predictions. Previewing a speech planned for Sunday, he said, “I’ll make it clear that I believe we can get a state” — as in, a Palestinian state — “defined by the end of my presidency.”

“Defined by the end of my presidency”?? Gee, that sounds a lot less strident than “a Mideast deal by the end of my term,” doesn’t it (as noted here)?

OK, so what exactly is involved in “defining a Palestinian state,” Dubya (to be fair, though, he does use the “defined” language in the MSNBC story as well as Stolberg’s account). Since our corporate media cousins aren’t going to ask you, then I guess it’s up to me to do so.

Does it include the right of return for Palestinians to what they consider to be their homeland? Does it involve any negotiation on control of the city of Jerusalem? What about Israeli occupation of the West Bank? Returning to the 1967 boundaries? Anything on this from Olmert and Abbas?

Anything at all? Hello??

And I don’t care about Incurious George telling us that that’s what he wants. We all know by now that he can say anything his aides feed him with a straight face, no matter how preposterous it may be. How are we supposed to know any of this will actually materialize?

In an accidental way, Little Tommy Friedman actually highlighted the issue I’m getting at here, which of course is that President George W. Milhous Bush doesn’t intend to take any of this seriously or add what precious little intellectual capital he has in an effort to move the process along (this is all “water wet, sky blue” stuff I know, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t call him on this).

Besides, why should Dubya do any “heavy lifting” when he has Condi around to present the façade that something is actually being accomplished here (hardly the first time this has occurred and probably won't be the last).