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Editorial Week of May 5, 2002
Armey's Remarks on Palestinians Undercut Bush Attempts for Peace Settlement
by Philip Roberto
It's a good thing that President George W. Bush is probably too busy to watch much television, otherwise he might have put his foot through the set this past Wednesday evening.
What else could the President to do when the floor leader of his own party in the House of Representatives makes the following statement on a nationally-televised political talk show:
"There are many Arab nations that have many hundreds of thousands of acres of land and soil and property and opportunity to create a Palestinian state. I happen to believe the Palestinians should leave [the West Bank]."
-- House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), during an interview on "Hardball with Chris Matthews" on May 1, 2002
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As other presidents have unsuccessfully attempted before him, President Bush is trying to broker a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. The President's stated policy is to have two national states, Israel and what would be a newly-created, independent Palestinian state, co-exist side-by-side with most (if not all) of the currently Israeli-occupied West Bank making up most of the territory of a Palestinian state.
Achieving such a settlement is no easy task, especially in the wake of Palestinian suicide bombers causing death and terror throughout Israel, the military response by Israel, the inability of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to prevent the suicide attacks and the hard-line stance in negotiations by the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon.
"Hardball" host Chris Matthews could hardly believe what he was hearing and repeatedly asked Armey to clarify or repeat what he was saying. However, it was like watching someone stuck in quicksand refusing a rope that would pull him to safety. Armey keep sinking deeper into his self-created morass, even going as far as saying he hadn't informed the President in advance of what he was going to say and that he supposed that Bush was first hearing of his views right at the moment.
Despite extremely limited media and press coverage of the flap (either a deliberate attempt to help downplay it all or a contagious case of not taking the retiring Armey seriously enough to report a major policy rift between the President and the GOP House leader), Armey issued what amounted to a retraction the following morning. White House damage control is probably the reason for the containment.
Whenever Democrats question an aspect of Bush Administration operations in Afghanistan or other actions in the war against terrorism, Armey is always one of the first to criticism them, saying that the Congress ought to allow President Bush to conduct foreign policy without their open criticism.
Here was clearly an example of when he should have taken his own advice.
Philip Roberto is the Editor of PoliticsOL.com and a veteran political activist. Sign up to receive his FREE valuable e-book on E-Activism, How to Advocate Your Cause on the Internet, at: http://www.politicsol.com/ebook.html
Philip Roberto is the Editor of