Thin Gruel And Media Cheerleaders

Obama gave another speech yesterday.

Yawn.

This one was billed as a major speech on Mid-East policy, but it fell far short of bold new initiatives: "It was pretty thin gruel for an area crying out for big changes."

IMO the most significant - and least helpful - aspect was his call for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the borders that were in place before the Six Day War way back in 1967. In case you don't remember, Israel was attacked by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Six days later Israel was done kicking their collective asses, in the process taking the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula. A wave of several hundred thousand Palestinians were displaced from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, adding more fuel to the long-simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (Technically, the Israeli Air Force attacked Egypt first in what Israel claimed was a preemptive strike in response to seven Egyptian divisions massing in the Sinai.)

But back to obama's speech:

"The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine," Obama said in the concluding section of his 45-minute address that looked at political and social change sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa.

"We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states," Obama continued.

Initial reaction to obama's speech was primarily negative. The Israelis reject it for two reasons: one, the territories held have strategic implications, serving to both buffer Israel from its neighbors and providing much better defensive capabilities than the land held before 1967; and two, in the past 40+ years a large number of Israelis have settled in the annexed territories. They would face the choice of giving up their homes and businesses, or living in a Palestinian state. Neither option is particularly appealing.

Even Hamas panned the speech, calling it "empty of concrete significance."

An interesting side note will be the reaction of the press to the speech, especially in light of recent comments by veteran journalists.

Today's White House Reporters Are Too Timid

Several veteran and prize-winning journalists who covered presidents from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush say that the current crop of White House correspondents are too timid and deferential...

... Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Haynes Johnson, "It's all very stale, very structured, very pale."

... longtime NBC and ABC reporter Sander Vanocur: "You want to know what's wrong with the press? The press is what's wrong with the press."

When the topic turn to today's White House press corps, the grizzled veterans were dismissive, calling them weak imitations of their Cold War predecessors.

(Sid Davis, the former NBC Washington bureau chief who covered nine presidents,) says "I don't like today's news conferences" with the president. Kennedy's, he says, were "thoroughly unrehearsed, natural and they worked to a large extent." Today's versions, he adds, "look like they are rehearsed." 

Worse, he says, reporters look like stenographers.

Or PR flacks ... or cheerleaders...