Today is Diplomatic Embarrassment Day on A1: the paper leads with King Abdullah of Jordan snubbing our own Dear Leader in the wake of his tryst last week with Ariel Sharon:

King Abdullah of Jordan dealt a rebuff to President Bush on Monday, abruptly putting off his visit to Washington scheduled for later this week. Jordanian officials said the visit had become impossible in light of Mr. Bush's recent support for Israel's territorial claims in the West Bank.

A statement from Jordan said the king, who was in California on Monday and went home rather than to Washington, would not meet with Mr. Bush this week as planned. ... A Jordanian official said the statement, in deliberately cool tones, was meant to send a message of displeasure.

Steven R. Weisman, "Jordanian King Puts Off Meeting Bush Over Israel"

The piece is a confused, desultory foreign-affairs grab-bag; half of it summarizes the state of play with coalition forces in Iraq following the announcements of the Spanish and now Honduran pullouts there. Meanwhile, some actual news about Sharon's Gaza pullout plan, reported by James Bennet, is relegated to A9:

Israel will invest tens of millions of dollars in West Bank settlements as it withdraws from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli finance minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Monday. ... Such a move would appear to run counter to Mr. Bush's own peace initiative, the road map, which calls for a halt to "all settlement activity." ... Mr. Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel could now "fortify our hold" on blocs of West Bank settlements. He told Israel radio on Monday that he would approve investment for settlements that would not be enclosed on Israel's side of the new barrier it is building against West Bank Palestinians.

"Israel Planning Big Investment in Settlements on West Bank"

Seems like somewhat inverted news judgement to me.

And in the off-lead position, Dick Cheney forgot to read the fine print when he demanded and won the opportunity to speak live and uncensored on Chinese television:

Anyone who tuned in to CCTV-4, China's all-news television channel, shortly after 10 a.m. on Thursday could watch Mr. Cheney deliver an address to students at Fudan University in Shanghai. A State Department translator provided simultaneous interpretation.

But the broadcast received no advance promotion or even a listing in the Chinese news media and was not repeated. The authorities promptly provided leading Web sites with a "full text" of the vice president's remarks, including his answers to questions after the speech, that struck out references to political freedom, Taiwan, North Korea and other issues that propaganda officials considered sensitive. ... Bush administration officials said they had not negotiated how the Chinese transcript would be handled. When the excised version came to their attention, they worked to prepare their own Chinese version. ... [A] consular official said the American side had tried to anticipate how the Chinese might censor Mr. Cheney's remarks but could not prevent all alterations. "It's a challenge," the official said.

Amusing as this is, in a gang-that-couldn't-shoot-straight kind of way, this is a trivial, back-page item at best. What's it doing above the fold on A1? At the same time as two separate pieces on the brewing tempest over charges contained in the new Woodward book ("Bush Officials Deny Money Was Diverted for Iraq War," Richard Stevenson and Carl Hulse; "Kerry Accuses Bush of 'Secret Deal' With Saudis on Oil," David Halbfinger and Jodi Wilgoren) get dropped into A8 Iraq coverage and A16 campaign coverage, respectively.

posted by michael  3:19:15 PM  
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