As Tony Blair prepares to meet his new bosses, the international Quartet on the Middle East, in Lisbon, Monday's speech by President Bush is hardly the flying start he might have hoped for. It's true that the one new element, an international conference on the region, is akin to the one which Mr. Blair pressed Mr. Bush in vain to allow him to host over two years ago. But Mr. Bush produced no other new policy, and precious little outline of how, if at all, the conference will advance the peace process.
Mr. Bush's demands on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas - borrowed from the ill-fated road map - were as tough as ever; those on Israel little beyond the ritual call to dismantle settlement outposts and freeze settlement expansion. If this was meant finally to identify the "political horizon" he talked about, Palestinians - and Israelis - are going to need some powerful binoculars to make it out.
- The Independent (London)
If you were diagnosed with a brain tumor, would you seek treatment or would you ignore it and hope it goes away? Would your answer differ according to whether your health insurance covered treatment? A diagnosis such as a brain tumor, or Parkinson's disease, is a serious matter. Just as serious are the diagnoses of mental illnesses and addictions. But depending on the location of the illness in your body, the decision to seek treatment may be harder to make.
Mental health and addiction patients are discriminated against because employers and insurers often do not classify these disorders as diseases of the brain. Yet we know after decades of brain research that they indeed are diseases, and that effective treatments exist.
This week, a House subcommittee heard testimony regarding the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act, which ensures that mental health and addiction patients are treated no differently from other medical or surgical patients.
Mr. Wellstone fought long and hard for those who had no voice, and he demonstrated a strong personal commitment to those with mental illness and addiction issues. It is our prayer that congressional lawmakers will honor his legacy, and help the millions of Americans suffering from these diseases by passing this bill and sending it to the president.
- Betty Ford and Rosalynn Carter in The Washington Times