None of my favorite liberal bloggers have yet weighed in on Bush’s speech this past week. Which is a shame, because I like hearing what the other side thinks under unusual circumstances (speeches like this don’t happen every day). Clearly the new policy toward Arafat and the Palestinians is unlike any the U.S. has adopted before. Michael Kelly predicts this is so momentous that Arafat could be history by this time next year. Not every one is happy with it. William F. Buckley, for one, thinks the new policy will breed more terrorism. But how come Mickey Kaus hasn’t said anything about the speech per se (he gets a big hoot out of how much Colin Powell may have had to swallow in order to agree to the policy shift)? Sometimes I wonder whether it’s because many liberals resist the idea that our current president may have more brains and determination than the media give him credit for. Witness Hendrik Hertzberg’s latest in the New Yorker. He’s very impressed by Bill Clinton’s take on the issue of Homeland Security, gushes that Clinton thought of it before Bush, and sighs (not for the first time) that our former frat boy president didn’t do more with his administration than his vaunted talent promised. I wonder what begrudging compliments Hertzberg will have for Bush’s policy speech next week? Perhaps he’ll grump something about superb speech writers….