A fascinating exchange

on Special Report with Britt Hume. He spoke with Eric Dezenhall, a media consultant who helps clients learn how to handle the media. The Israelis are winning on the ground, but they are being pilloried in the media, because they don't "own the symbols of victimhood." Whoever tries to justify using force will lose, because the media only understand "villains, victims and vindicators." The Israelis, Dezenhall says, think that press relations is a frivolous waste of time, but the Palestinian spokespersons are very skillful at schmoozing western reporters, going to lunch, using the vocabulary of "tolerance, diversity and victimhood," the kind of language the international media eat up.

As if to prove this point, the Israelis announced today that they will not cooperate with a U.N. investigation of the incursion into Jenin. Make that the "horrible massacre and devastation of Jenin." Now why would they not want to cooperate? Because it will most likely be as fair as a Ku Klux Klan report on the civil rights movement.

A following story focused on Jews who are leaving the Democrats for Bush because they feel he is supporting Israel and dealing properly with terrorists. It would be nice, but I wouldn't count on it. Time will tell.