WHY THE SPEECH BUSH GAVE IS BETTER THAN THE ONE THEY WANTED TO HEAR

The verdict is in, and the liberal establishment has given Bush a clear thumbs down on the speech. Here's a sampling:

The New York Times called the speech "a plan without a map," and that the absence of immediate Israeli concessions would result in Palestinian "hopelessness"

The Washington Post in almost identical language called the plan an "uncertain road map" whose main deficiency was that
"Palestinian officials who said they needed some incentive to pursue such reform and to control terrorism didn't get the encouragement they were looking for."

In other words, Bush erred by deviating from the sacred principle of Evenhandedness. It is an article of faith for the liberal establishment that both sides were equally to blame in the collapse of the Oslo Process, and both sides need to be pressured to end the current round of violence. While this squares nicely with journalistic convention, it has the problem of being entirely removed from reality.

Josh Marshall in Talking Points Memois upset that Bush didn't 1) commit to a Palestinian state, now, and 2) linked statehood with a responsible Palestinian leadership. He calls this "almost the definition of colonialism, the antithesis of what it means to have your own state"

Marshall is upset that Bush didn't hand the Palestinians a state on a silver platter as a reward for their strategic decision to respond to Camp David with a terror offensive. Somehow, he fails to craft an argument on how this would not be seen as a vindication for that decision. Even worse, he collapses into the standard left-wing bugaboo about colonialism - that we shouldn't impose our values of democracy, tolerance and human rights onto non-Western nations. It is time for this tired canard to be discarded. A Palestinian state with liberal democratic values is both a) capable of living in peace with Israel and b) worth creating. Why on earth should anyone except Israel-haters wish to create one more bellicose police state in the West Bank?

Tapped's take is that the speech was "half-assed -- something that Karl Rove came up with to try to thread the needle between various neoconservative, evangelical, and pro-Israel lobbies." Tapped then sent its readers over to Marshall's flawed analysis.

Translation: Tapped hasn't a clue about the Middle East, but it knows that Bush panders a lot on domestic policy, and Karl Rove is the master panderer. Tapped should stick to domestic policy. First off, there is no needle to thread between neocon, evangelical and pro-Israel lobbies - these are overlapping groups. Neocons are pro-Israel because it of the common values between the two countries, and evangelicals are pro-Israel, well because they take the Bible seriously (ranging from the admirable philosemtism of those that identify Jesus with his people to the frightening millenialism of those waiting for Jesus to lead the newly Christianized Israel into the final battle). Second, there were plenty of other pressures on the Bush Admnistration - domestic (big oil) and foreign (Europe, Saudis) that wanted Bush to deliver a speech that would have made liberals happy and Palestinian terrorists jubilant.

The speech the liberals wanted - coupling Arafat with Sharon, aborting the Israeli offensive against Hamas, would have led to glowing editorial reviews, and a renewed wave of terror against Israel. Instead, Bush delivered a speech that spoke the truth, and leaves the next step to the Palestinians - to choose terror or a state.