Qatar selling al Jazeera?

Interesting NYT story on al Jazeera today.  Made some good points, I thought.  I liked the fact checking on Ahmed Mansour - hey, the guy is still on the air all the time, if you bother to look...  But the piece as a whole started to weird me out.

Listen to this:  "However, some administration officials acknowledged that the well-publicized American pressure on the station - highlighted when Qatar was not invited to a summit meeting on the future of democracy in the Middle East last summer in Georgia - has drawn charges of hypocrisy, especially in light of President Bush's repeated calls for greater freedoms and democracy in the region."

Please note that I am not an administration official.

And this: "Some administration officials acknowledge that their "public diplomacy" system is fundamentally broken, but there is disagreement on how to fix it. Two years ago, the United States launched its own Arab television network, Al Hurra, but administration officials say it has yet to gain much of a following."

Please note that I am not an administration official.

And this:  "Administration officials say that debates within the American government over what to do about Al Jazeera have sometimes erupted into shouting matches. "One side is shouting, 'We have to shut them down!' and the other side is saying 'We have to work with them to make them better,' " said an administration official who has taken part in the confidential discussions. "It's an emotional issue. People can't think of it rationally."

Once again, I am not an administration official. 

And this:  "An American official noted that Al Jazeera not only had alienated the United States but also had angered officials in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and many other countries by focusing on internal problems in those nations. "They must be doing something right," he said."

This administration is starting to freak me out. 

How deep do these Aardvarkian influences go?    

(I was going to provide some links to show that each of those statements is almost a verbatim copy of arguments I've made over the last year.  But then - slap, slap, slap - I realized I had to get back to work.  But if you go through my "arab media" category, you'll see what I mean.)

Comments

[William Burns]

Get back to work!

[administration official]

Whoops, looks like the aardvark is out of the bag.

[the aardvark]

well, it's been a good run. guess you can't blog from an undisclosed location forever...

[Leila Abu-Saba]

Ok, you're supposed to be working. Somebody else in the know please fill me in. Is the Aardvark saying they interviewed him and then falsely identified him as an administration official? Or is he saying that the reporter didn't interview any such official at all, just combed the Aardvark's blog?

Both are bad but the second is worse than the first. Implies the journalist is making up quotes by surfing the internet. I don't doubt the NYT would do this, but I just want to be clear about the Aardvark's insinuation...

[the aardvark]

No, no, Leila - no insinuations of that kind, though I could certainly see how it could be read that way. My point was that I'm a bit shocked that after I've been making certain points about the administration's approach to the Arab media for several years (not just on the blog...), and receiving a certain amount of flack for it at times, a bunch of administration officials are suddenly (post-election) saying on the record exactly the things which I said all along. That potentially augurs good things for policy, and suggests that perhaps I've underestimated Condi - depending on which officials we're talking about here - but it's still more than a little disorienting. Sorry for the confusion... I was *not* a source for this particular NYT story, I didn't mean to imply that, nor any malfeasance on the NYT's part.

[praktike]

'twas the aardvarkian humor.

[ddjango]

GET

BACK

TO

WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Leila Abu-Saba]

Whew. I am glad you clarified. Thanks.

Now get back to work!

(that goes for me too - I'm applying to grad school)