Daily · Dreamtime

The new computer, the MacBook Air, got the loudest applause of the morning's announcements when it was unsheathed from a manila envelope to highlight its slender size.

Apple built anticipation for the trade show by blanketing San Francisco with cryptic ads aimed at potential customers and technophiles. This year's campaign -- "There's something in the air" -- was a cloaked reference to the new $1,800 laptop. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2008/01/15/GA2008011502818.html

Note: This op ed contains a quote from Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar about the killing of his son in the Israeli attack in Gaza yesterday, blaming the Americans for complicity. Al-Zahar used even stronger language in the news articles this morning in both the Washington Post and the New York Times. This was a poignant reminder for the members of a delegation from the Council for the National Interest who had an interview with Dr. al-Zahar in Gaza in January 2006 during their Middle East tour to observe the Palestinian elections that month. (I was a member of the delegation.) We met with the medical doctor in his house, which had been rebuilt following its bombing in 2003 in an Israeli targeted assassination attempt against him. His 23-year-old son Khaled was killed in that attack, his wife spent a year in a hospital recovering from her injuries, and he had his legs broken.  He told us that his house had been hit by an American-made missile fired from an American F-16 piloted by an Israeli  officer.  How does one respond to a comment like that? Dr. al-Zahar was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council  in the elections that his Hamas party won with a  majority of the seats and he became the "foreign minister" of the new Palestinian cabinet that was subsequently formed. The U.S. Government refused to recognize the outcome of the election because it has decreed that Hamas is a "terrorist organization." According to today's press reports Dr. al-Zahar's younger son Husam (18, I believe)  has now been killed in a targeted assassination by an Israeli air strike while he was traveling in a car in Gaza. There is no doubt that he was properly described as a "Hamas militant." What else could he be?  The Post published a picture of Dr. Zahar and other mourners standing beside the Hamas-flag draped bodies of some 12 of the Palestinians killed in the Israeli attack at their funeral yesterday. The paper balanced this with a photo of the blood-stained face of an Israeli woman wounded by a "subsequent" Palestinian rocket attack on the Israeli city of Sderot that took the life of an Ecuadoran worker. Balance above all, friends, let's have balance! Bob Keeley
January 16, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Faith, Freedom and Bling in the Middle East
By MAUREEN DOWD

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia

As a Saudi soldier with a gold sword high-stepped in front of him, President Bush walked slowly beside King Abdullah through the shivery gray mist enveloping the kingdom, following the red carpet leading from Air Force One to the airport terminal.

When the two stepped onto the escalator, the president tenderly reached for the king's hand, in case the older man needed help. He certainly does need help, but not the kind he is prepared to accept.

It took Mr. Bush almost his entire presidency to embrace diplomacy, but now that he's in the thick of it, or perhaps the thin of it — given his speed-dating approach to statesmanship — he is kissing and holding hands with kings, princes, emirs, sheiks and presidents all over the Arab world and is trying to persuade them that he is not in a monogamous relationship with the Jews.

His message boiled down to: Iran bad, Israel good, Iraq doing better.

Blessed is the peacemaker who comes bearing a $30 billion package of military aid for Israel and a $20 billion package of Humvees and guided bombs for the Arabs.

Like the slick Hollywood guy in "Annie Hall" who has a notion that he wants to turn into a concept and then develop into an idea, W. has resumed his mantra of having a vision that turns into freedom that could develop into global democracy.