A bunch of shit

The Middle East Media Research Institute yesterday posted a translation of an interesting interview of Sa'd Al-Hariri by the Saudi government daily Okaz. Al-Hariri is the head of Lebanon's leading political party, Al-Mustaqbal, and is the son of assassinated former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. He commented on the stand against Hezbollah that many Arab states are taking:

"The position of the [Saudi] kingdom, Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf states was positive, and those hypocrites [i.e. Syria and Iran] calling for battle, are in fact the people most distant from this struggle. They want to bring the region into an all-out war.

Al-Hariri description of the situation jibes with President Bush's colorful assessment of Syria's role (commenter Alex provides a link to the video clip of Bush's remarks being caught by an open mike). But instead of focusing on the actual policy implications revealed in the conversation overheard between Bush and Tony Blair, the media obsesses on the naughty word that Bush employed (Beavis to Butthead: "He said 'shit', heh-heh, heh-heh).

The Middle East may be on the brink of a regional war, and "professional" journalists devote hundreds of stories to a presidential expletive. A bunch of shit, indeed.