As Steve Klein noted in Tidbits on Jan. 10, the White House — including President Bush (although I have my doubts the Blogger-in-Chief put fingers to keyboard himself) — blogged during a presidential visit to Israel. At the time, it was perceived as an experiment.
Perhaps it failed.
The President and entourage are back in Israel this week, appearing at a conference of political and business heavyweights, including Sergey Brin (who is getting in touch with his Jewish roots) and Rupert Murdoch, in honor of Israel’s 60th anniversary. Bush is pressing (not a lot) for progress in the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire, speaking at the Israeli Knesset, doing a little sightseeing (and upsetting my weekly little league practice because of road closures).
But the White House Trip Notes blog, which ran for eight days in January, so far has not reappeared. Perhaps the goal is to keep this trip’s expectations — which were low to begin with — from being pumped up at all.
If I were the President, I might write about my visit to Masada, the ancient fortress where Jewish zealots held off the Romans. And if I were Laura Bush, I might have posted something about my visit to the early childcare health center and tunnels below the Western Wall.
In addition, some online journalism pros and semi-pros were twittering from the conference. Now, that’s something I would like to see: a Presidential tweet! “Just finished my speech. Reaction was good. Now, for something to eat.”
