Small Time

Every White House loves the annual State of the Union speech, because it supposedly showcases the president for a full prime-time hour in all his imperial glory. But this is the first State of the Union I can remember where the president ended the evening diminished in stature rather than enhanced.First, we witnessed the death of the great-man theory of Bush. The Bush presidency, in the minds of its most fervent supporters, has been built on the idea that Bush is a visionary with bold ideas that he forcefully pushes, even when this damages his own popularity. But the bold agenda is gone. His "addicted to oil" line will garner headlines, but his actual oil-independence plan is so modest--an increase of tens of millions of dollars in a $2 trillion annual budget--that it is barely worth mentioning. Instead of rearguing the case for his Social Security plan, he called for another Social Security commission. The much-hyped health care proposals were mentioned in passing. His fancy American Competitiveness Initiative-- a research and development tax credit and more money for math and science--seems reasonable but forgettable. Second, there was very little in the speech for conservatives to rally around. No bold new tax cuts. No line-in-the-sand warning to Iran. No culture war rhetoric. Bush came before Congress a seemingly humbled, even emasculated, president. Bush's statement that "Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security" was met with raucous applause and cheers from Democrats. Bush seemed genuinely taken aback and embarrassed by the response. It punctured the pomposity of the event and was probably the closest our system ever gets to a prime minister's questions-style drubbing of the president by the legislature. Let's hope there's more of it in the future. Hamas's victory in the elections for Palestinian parliament creates a thorny dilemma for Israel, the United States, and the European Union: how to deal with a Palestinian government dominated by what all three have branded a terrorist organization. Yet there is a potential silver lining in this development. Not because it may transform Hamas into an ordinary political party that eschews violence and terrorism in favor of "more moderate and peaceful policies," as suggested by Jimmy Carter, among others. But, rather, because Hamas's win might trigger a widespread disillusionment with the mirage--created by the Oslo process--of a democratic and peace-loving Palestinian government. A good place to start is to acknowledge that the Palestinian elections were a contest not between a democratic party and a terrorist organization, but rather between two unreconstructed terrorist groups. In these circumstances, where the real choice is between a plain-speaking extremist organization advocating the destruction of a neighboring state (Hamas) and a corrupt and repressive regime couching its intentions in hollow peace rhetoric whenever addressing non-Arab audiences (Fatah), Hamas may prove the lesser of two evils. By leaving no doubt about its true nature and raising no false expectations of imminent peace and democracy, it helps expose the deep malaise of the Palestinian political system and the attendant need for its fundamental overhaul. * Efraim Karsh is the head of the Mediterranean Studies Programme at King's College, University of London.

By Ryan Lizza; Efraim Karsh