First, for me the most important paragraph is this one:

Al-Jazeera ushered in a new kind of open, contentious politics that delighted in shattering taboos. The names of its most popular talk shows suggest their distinctive combination of transgression and pluralism—More Than One Opinion, No Limits, The Opposite Direction, Open Dialogue. Al-Jazeera’s public defines itself in opposition to the status quo, against the glorification of kings and presidents and their sycophants. A program in the summer of 2003 asked viewers whether the current Arab regimes were worse than the old colonial regimes. Responding online, 76 percent of the respondents said yes. Nor does radical Islamism go unchallenged: When the station aired an exclusive video by al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri in June, it turned his monologue into a dialogue by inviting one of his leading Islamist critics and several liberals to respond point by point.

Absolutely, I recall ... well the moment al Jazeerah made an impression on me. I happened to watching when our fine Guide Muammar rang in to a talk show run by Mr. Comb Over and ranted on and on, until ... and this literally shocked everyone, Comb Over cut him off and hung up. (As an aside I rather had the impression that Jazeerah was already rapidly on the rise even in the Maghreb c. 98; the call I am thinking of was c. August 98 or so, maybe a few months earlier).

Brilliant.

The dialogue and the criticisms - not the fact they air objectionable things are the key things to understand.

I also should note that I very much enjoyed this moderately unkind but necessary dig at Thomas Blither on Pointlessly Freidman, as well as the larger point in regards to the conversations:

According to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, “The U.S. ouster of Saddam Hussein has triggered the first real ‘conversation’ about political reform in the Arab world in a long, long time. It’s still mostly in private, but more is now erupting in public.” Any regular viewer of al-Jazeera would find those remarks laughable. Long before George Bush took up the mantle of democratizing the Middle East, al-Jazeera routinely broadcast debates about political reform in the Arab world. In 1999 alone, the station aired talk show telecasts on “Arab Democracy between Two Generations,” “Dem­ocracy in the Arab World,” “Arab Participation in Israeli Elections,” “The Relationship between Rulers and the Ruled in Islam,” “The Misuse of States of Emergency in the Arab World,” “Human Rights in the Arab World,” and “Unleashing Freedom of Thought.” In 2002, only months before the invasion of Iraq, its programs included “Democracy and the Arab Reality,” “Reform and Referenda in the Arab World,” and (in a dig at the democratic trappings of Arab regimes) a mocking look at “99.99% Electoral Victories.”

The point here being is that there is in fact an Arab dialogue about many things, and further to that, despite certain rather fact impaired spin in this regard (usually from the group which feels its point of view is not dominant - sometimes that means both sides), the dialogue is a real change driver.

It is, of course, imperfect. But the phrase "do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good" or the newly popular phrase attributed to Lawrence of Arabia in re better the Arabs do their thing imperfectly than outsiders try to excute perfectly comes to mind.

Finally, as a guy who merely lives and works in the region and has a financial interest in seeing things blossom, let me whole heartedly endorse this paragraph's observations:

Al-Jazeera and its Arab television competitors are building a pluralist political culture in which all public issues are up for debate, and disagreement is not only permissible but expected. Its importance cannot be overstated, particularly since neither Islamist movements nor the existing autocratic Arab regimes—the two most powerful competing forces in the Arab world—offer a route to liberal reforms. And pro-American liberals in the region, however brave and eloquent, are, on their own, weak and marginal. Al-Jazeera offers them what American guns cannot: credibility, legitimacy, influence. When Ghassan bin Jadu, al-Jazeera’s Beirut bureau chief and host of Open Dialogue, sat down on-camera in December 2003 with the liberal Saad al-Din Ibrahim and the moderate Islamist Fahmy Huwaydi to discuss Ibrahim’s argument that Arab reformers should accept American support in their quest for significant political change, their conversation reached millions of Arab viewers.

If Western officials, and especially American ones, are smart they will end the pointless beating up on the Arab Sats and come to see them as tools to exploit.

With some degree of intelligence and attention to the right rhetoric for the Arab audience, they just might have an influence.

Of course I might win the lottery (well if played).

[EDIT]
I meant to quote, in the context of the above, this advice which I very much agree with: Bou Aradvraak is spot on with this advice (which goes equally well for any Western power):

A better American response would be to actively engage with al-Jazeera. One of the hidden costs of al-Hurra is that it sucks up the time and energies of American guests, official or not, who might otherwise be reaching far wider audiences on al-Jazeera. The United States should maintain a stable of attractive, fluently Arabic-speaking representatives, stationed in Doha and other Arab capitals, whose chief responsibility would be to appear on any Arab satellite television station that would have them. Even if they didn’t win every debate, their presence would force their Arab sparring partners to take American arguments into account. It would keep Arabs honest, while at the same time demonstrating to Arab audiences that America took them seriously and was willing to debate them on an equal footing.

The key here is, even with people with somewhat less than fluency in Arabic, if they are at least functionally operational in Arabic and are allowed to get out and about, they can develop a sense of what kinds of arguments and discourse to develop; even if on camera they depended on translation.

Expensive?

Yes. But so is that waste of money al-Hurra.