NP - Answers on An Empty Page

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52352-2002Jun26.html

By Richard Cohen
Thursday, June 27, 2002; Page A31

On Capitol Hill they tell the story of the senator who was in the habit of 
not bothering to read staff-written speeches before he delivered them. One 
day the senator grabbed a speech, dashed to his meeting and started reading. 
He got down to the bottom of the page where it said, "And now I'd like to 
outline my five principles of foreign policy." He turned the page and there, 
in large type, it said, "You're on your own, hotshot."

I thought that story had to be apocryphal until I heard President Bush's 
speech on the Middle East. It started well, with some richly deserved 
denunciations of Palestinian terrorism, and it called for a Palestinian 
state sometime down the road, maybe even within three years. Then, in my 
mind, Bush turned the page and found . . . nothing.

Bush wants Yasser Arafat gone, and he called for new elections. But what 
happens if Arafat, as is likely, is reelected? We don't know. This is on the 
blank page.

Israel now has much of the West Bank under military occupation. "Freedom of 
movement" is a contradiction in terms. There is none. How do you campaign 
for election if you can't go from one town to the next? The answer, it 
seems, must be on the blank page.

Bush called for a "provisional state of Palestine." What is that? What are 
its borders, provisional or otherwise -- the ones offered at Camp David or 
the far less generous ones offered by Ariel Sharon? Will moderate 
Palestinians stand up to the terrorists among them and risk their lives in 
the cause of a "provisional state"? All these questions are answered on the 
blank pages.

[...]



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