The NY Times Concedes

The NY Times editorial board must have had a rough go of it when they approved this article laying out the changes occurring in the Arab world:

A mix of outside pressure and internal shifts has created this moment. Arabs of a younger, more savvy generation appear more willing to take their dissatisfaction directly to the front stoop of repressive leaders.
In Beirut on Saturday, a crowd of mostly young demonstrators hooted through a speech by the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, as he repeated too-familiar arguments for pan-Arab solidarity, without committing to a timetable for withdrawing Syrian soldiers from Lebanon.
Young protesters have been spurred by the rise of new technology, especially uncensored satellite television, which prevents Arab governments from hiding what is happening on their own streets. The Internet and cellphones have also been deployed to erode censorship and help activists mobilize in ways previous generations never could.

And, the Times grudgingly must admit:

Another factor, pressure from the Bush administration, has emboldened demonstrators, who believe that their governments will be more hesitant to act against them with Washington linking its security to greater freedom after the Sept. 11 attacks. The United States says it will no longer support repressive governments, and young Arabs, while hardly enamored of American policy in the region, want to test that promise.

Of course, this being the NY Times, they can't concede a total defeat:

Even so, the changes wrought in each country thus far appear minor and preliminary, though the idea of challenging authoritarian rule more directly is remarkably new. In Egypt, nobody expects anyone but Mr. Mubarak to win this fall. Old rules against basic freedoms like the right to assemble, essential for a campaign, remain unaltered.

Excuse me; "minor and preliminary"? That's like saying that Lech Walesa's strike leadership in a Gdansk shipyard were minor and preliminary steps toward unraveling the Iron Curtain. The Times couldn't get through the entire piece without allowing a voice of dissent:

Arabs differ on the degree to which American influence helped foster the changed mood, but there is no doubt that pressure from the Bush administration played some role.
Iraq, however, serves more as a threat than a model. Although many Arabs were impressed by the zeal with which Iraqis turned out to vote on Jan. 30, Iraq remains a synonym for frightening, violent chaos.
"When you are a Syrian, or an Egyptian or a Saudi and you see what happened to Iraqi society over the past two years, you wonder if democracy deserves such instability and such a sacrifice of people," said Ghassan Salame, a former Lebanese cabinet minister.

Mr. Salame also works with the UN, a fact that was not disclosed. He also argued for early elections in Iraq. I imagine the Times didn't quote him on that when they were busy telling the Bush administration to push back the election.

So, to sum up, the Times had to acknowledge that the events happening in the mid-east are big and that GWB had a small hand in starting them. For the Times, that is an enormous concession.
Have no fear though liberals, in a few years the Times will run an op-ed somehow giving credit for these momentous events to anyone other than Bush.