"During his years at the University of Texas, Fayad picked up the language of America's South, the lingo spoken in President Bush's immediate surroundings. Fayad knows the names of the local football teams and he knows how to give the neo-conservatives the feeling that they are talking to a good ol' boy. His service at World Bank headquarters in Washington during the presidency of Bush senior was a preparatory course in southern-Republican psychology. In an interview to Haaretz last Sunday, the day before Bush's speech (about whose main points the Palestinian prime minister had been informed of in advance), Fayad proved to the Americans that he is someone they can trust. Every attempt to extract from him a word of criticism of the American helplessness, or even the slightest reservation, was met with a forgiving smile that seemed to say "really now, do you think I'm a fool and a sucker?""