The 'Oh, so predictable' news headline of the week: "Blame Bush"

THE WASHINGTON POST:
Takeover by Hamas Illustrates Failure of Bush's Mideast Vision

"Five years ago this month, President Bush stood in the Rose Garden and laid out a vision for the Middle East .... "

Apparently, according to "The WAPO" Bush's mistakes were:
(1) calling for an Israel and a state called Palestine living together in peace.
(2) calling on the Palestinian people "to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror."

What shameful goals, such shameful requests .... what was Bush thinking?

I am quite surprised, yet heartened, that the WAPO is concerned over Israel's safety. I am equally surprised WAPO calls Hamas a 'militant group' and considers them 'radical' and malfunctioning. Who new?

Apparently, another mistake Bush made was in pushing for Israel's departure from the Gaza Strip, according to the Post. But if "Gaza has no territorial issues with Israel, since there are no Israelis in Gaza," and since so much of the blame coming from the left (and that includes the Post) is laid at the feet of Israel, and demanding Israel leave Gaza which they captured during the Six Day War after Israel was attacked, how and why is this a mistake? One can argue it was a mistake for Israel to pull out of Gaza for their own safety and security reasons, but that is a different argument. It seems that if the Palestinians cannot get along with each other, the blame game can only be directed at themselves, not Bush, and not Israel.

Another 'mistake' was trying to separate/isolate the moderates from the extremists so we can work with the moderates. What's up with that? Doesn't Bush know we have to negotiate and work with them too? It's a matter of 'fairness'. After all, the extremists are no different than anybody else, they are just ... well more extreme.

And finally, I guess, it boils down to the 'less is more' argument. "The less we try to intervene and shape Palestinian politics, the better off we will be," said Robert Malley, an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the International Crisis Group.

Now if I could only forget the hundreds of times that I heard, Bush is not doing enough to solve the Israel - Palestinian problem.