Bush hails liberty and democracy in speech to Arab leaders... urges leaders to "treat citizens with the dignity they deserve"

Bush delivered a speech to Arab leaders Sunday promoting freedom and democracy, concepts the Arab world needs desperately needs. Of course, this speech will send the lefties into fits. CNN:

At the start of his Mideast trip, President Bush gave Israel glowing praise. As it ended on Sunday, the president gave the Arab world a stern lecture: Isolate state sponsors of terror and give citizens more freedoms.

"Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail," Bush said at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East. "The time has come for nations across the Middle East to abandon these practices, and treat their people with the dignity and respect they deserve."

Bush's address to hundreds of global policymakers and business leaders gathered in this Red Sea beach town was his finishing touch on a five-day Mideast trip to Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The speech, and Bush's second Mideast trip of the year, came eight months before the end of his presidency, his target date for reaching a sweeping peace agreement that would resolve generations-old grievances and create a Palestinian state.

The president counseled Arab states to "move past their old resentments against Israel" and "invest aggressively" in the Palestinian people, what he views as their role in the process. In contrast, many Arabs think Bush leans too far Israel's way in the long-running Mideast dispute, and that Washington doesn't push Israel hard enough to give way on issues that anger Palestinians and stymie a deal.

Bush has tried to counter that by talking more about the Palestinians' plight while here in Egypt than he did in Israel. He also offered plenty of praise for democratic advances, naming countries like Turkey, Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco and Jordan.

"The light of liberty is beginning to shine," he said.

Bush's advice that Muslims move past "old resentments against Israel" and invest aggressively in the Palestinian people is an approach I wish he had taken 7 years ago, instead of continuing the fiction that the Palestinians want their own country.

Exit question: will the Democrats whine that Bush's reference to "old resentments" was another veiled attack against Obama? (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)