WP, Dan Froomkin: The White House 'After Party' for Ehud Elmo and Mahoomed Abbas

[DeepModem Mom]

The White House 'After Party'
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, November 28, 2007

A day after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas nebulously agreed to begin negotiations, President Bush is hosting them at the White House -- but not, apparently, to lean on them for concessions and to start the arduous process of hashing out peace.

Rather, in the words of White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, "it's like the after party."

Most Middle East experts agree that the chance of yesterday's summit leading to anything remotely concrete will decrease from slim to none without Bush's intense personal engagement. But other than presidential lip service to delegates at a conference at the Naval Academy yesterday -- "I give you my personal commitment to support your work with the resources and resolve of the American government," he said-- there are scant signs that he intends to follow through.

As I wrote in Monday's column, Bush's flirtation with Middle East summitry looks more like an attempt to humor his beloved secretary of state than it does a departure from his hands-off and ardently pro-Israeli posture of the past seven years.

There were clear signs of ambivalence yesterday. Bush mangled the names of his two guests of honor, calling them "Ehud Elmo" and "Mahoomed Abbas." And, after his speech, Bush didn't even stick around for the afternoon's events....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/11/28/BL2007112801309.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR

[MotorCityMan]

1. I'm sure he'll do LOTS of good

"From here on, Bush described his role in the peace process this way: 'I work the phones, I listen, I encourage, I have meetings. I do a lot of things.'

I'll just bet this was said in a petulant and whiny tone of voice.