Egypt again

Abu Aardvark reports this question and answer from the President at a press conference.

Q Mr. President, President Bush, the First Lady under the Egyptian pyramids this week enthusiastically endorsed Mubarak's first steps towards direct presidential elections. Two days later, Mubarak supporters attacked the opposition in the streets. Was it premature to back Mubarak? What's your message to Mubarak now?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I also embraced President Mubarak's first steps and said that those first steps must include people's ability to have access to TV, and candidates ought to be allowed to run freely in an election and that there ought to be international monitors. That's -- and the idea of people expressing themselves in opposition in government, then getting a beating, is not our view of how a democracy ought to work. It's not the way that you have free elections. People ought to be allowed to express themselves, and I'm hopeful that the President will have open elections that everybody can have trust in.

Abu Aardvark also reports how the Arab media covered Bush's statement. Basically, they focus on the fact that Bush criticized Mubaraka. Now that's good news. This is what public diplomacy ought to look like. I'm also glad that Bush said that the referendum was a good first step, and I hope that he encourages Mubarak to take more steps.

Moral of the story: if America does the right thing, it can and does get the benefit of the doubt in the Arab media. No lesson could be more important for thinking about public diplomacy. It is really worth reflecting on this, given the relatively tepid nature of Bush's criticism of Egypt and the fervent embrace of those comments by virtually the entire Arab media - across the political spectrum, from al-Arabiya to al-Jazeera, from al-Sharq al-Awsat to al-Quds al-Arabi. Forget about building a lousy television station that nobody watches, forget about spin, forget about advertising and public relations. Say the right thing, do the right thing, and Arabs will in fact notice and give the U.S. a chance.