The White House 'After Party'

Michael Abramowitz writes in The Washington Post: "The outcome of Bush's new effort, in the twilight of his presidency, will depend greatly on the personal commitment he is willing to invest in the unfolding process, according to officials and experts on the Middle East.

"'At this point, he's come to an event and he's made a speech,' said Dennis Ross, the Middle East peace envoy of Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. 'The investment will come if he starts engaging in serious diplomacy.'"

Trying to Look Statesmanlike

David Lightman writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "President Bush's effort this week to jump-start Mideast peace negotiations resembles other presidents' late-term bids to become peacemaking international statesmen.

"Some of them have made progress on foreign-policy problems, as Bill Clinton did with his own 2000 Camp David Mideast summit, but the grand gestures usually fail to erase their domestic troubles. The low expectations surrounding this particular summit make it unlikely to earn Bush a sudden wave of domestic acclaim.

"For one thing, he's shown limited interest in international diplomacy until now and arguably none in Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. He's never visited Israel, has been reluctant to get directly involved in talks and spent only about four hours Tuesday at the conference in Annapolis, Md. . . .

"'The public's not going to buy this. They'll see it as too little too late,' said Lance deHaven-Smith, a professor of political science at Florida State University.

"For another, nothing that happens at Annapolis is likely to overshadow the problems dogging Bush, notably the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the stumbling American economy."

That Last-Minute Drama

What drama there was yesterday came from the last-minute agreement on a joint statement.

Matthew Lee writes for the Associated Press: "Mere minutes before the Mideast peace conference was to open, the deal still wasn't done.

"Months of behind-the-scenes wrangling and a final marathon round of talks that had lasted until 3 a.m. and resumed at 5 a.m. still hadn't yielded an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on a joint statement to launch a new round of peace talks.

"The parties were still stuck on the wording of one key paragraph.

"And the Palestinians were still objecting to calling Israel a 'Jewish state.'