From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield. When President Bush made his stunning Mideast policy speech this week,

calling, among other things for the ouster of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat,

the response in the European

press was predictable. The right of center papers mainly lined up behind the president, and the left

swooped in for another assault against American unilateralism. Joining us now is Alice Chasin,

editor of the World Press Review. Alice, I want to discuss the Arab response to the Bush speech,

but let's just stay in Europe for a moment. We know about the right of center press.

How about the leftist press? Usual complaints? Any new wrinkles?

The left-wing German publications and the left-wing British publications, the Independent and

the Guardian, were appalled at what they saw as the death of the so-called

quartet, the quartet being the alliance of the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and the United

States in a unified position on mediation in the Middle East. And they regarded Bush's speech

as a kind of reflexive return to unilateralism.

So Liberation in particular was acerbic in its condemnation of what Bush had to say and described his

allusions to a Palestinian state someday as akin to biblical promises of a promised land.

It was so vague and so lacking in any sort of detail.

In any of the coverage, in any of the editorials,

was there any self-reflection about the, well, let's talk about the quartet,

about the quartet's peculiar inability to set up any gigs and play for

anybody who wants to listen.

Yes.

...