I'm with Andrew Stuttaford.

Bush was right to apologize to the Iraqis for what was done, and, politically it may have been shrewd to couch that apology in wider terms to all Arab peoples, but we should be clear about one thing. The denunciations of America by the Arab press outside Iraq has no more moral (politically speaking, it is something else) significance than the sight of a weeping Goebbels. It’s nothing more than the howling of a coterie of hand-picked hypocrites, flaks for the fascists, theocratic or otherwise, who run their countries, journalistic attack dogs who, it seems, have learned to love their leashes.

At the risk of ignoring the rare exceptions, the Arab press is a controlled press. We should not expect it to express the interests or concerns of the Arab people.

Some Arab media outlets are owned/managed/staffed by their governments. Some, of course, are seen as propaganda tools, with content and opinion approved, "guided", or approved by a regime ministry.

Some Arab media outlets are, in fact, free of direct government control and censorship, but toe the line of accepted behavior in order to remain in business.

And, the notion that the press must inform the public even at the risk of damaging the interests of the government is alien to many Arabs.

This is a sad state of affairs. But we can learn from it by understanding who controls the press and who the press speaks for and to. It does provide some insight.