Opinion: In today’s pages: YouTube picks a president?
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The editorial board sees pitfalls in President Bush’s new attempt at a Middle East peace meeting, but concedes it’s better than nothing:
It’s easy to itemize the reasons why this initiative might founder. It comes late in the second term of a president who hasn’t made the Israeli-Palestinian issue a priority. Some of the would-be participants resent continued U.S. involvement in Iraq. The two-state solution Bush rightly advocates is opposed not only by rejectionist Palestinians but by right-wing Israelis who are loath to dismantle Jewish settlements in the West Bank or return the Golan Heights to Syria.Finally, in coupling the conference with pleas for financial support for Abbas and his Fatah administration, Bush finds himself hoist on the petard of his simplistic insistence that democracy is the key to the transformation of the Middle East.
The board also takes a look at the YouTube video questions sent in so far for Monday’s presidential debates, and notes that it’s getting harder to know how long a property has been on the market.
Journalist and author Oliver August knows what’s to blame for poorly made goods in China: corruption. Columnist Rosa Brooks argues that the Bush administration has finally succeeded in making its own reality -- unfortunately, a nightmareish one. Eric J. Weiner is skeptical about the Dow Jones’ historic closing above 14,000. And columnist Joel Stein studies another market -- the one for sugary cereal.
On the letters page, see if San Pedro’s Cathleen Clay is right when she argues that columnist Jonah Goldberg commits a logical fallacy in his defense of President Bush.