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Bush Traveling With An Old Script
Backdropped by the Slovenian Alps and a sparkling blue sky, Presi dent Bush first looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes six years ago and grasped "a sense of his soul."
The warmth of the two leaders' first encounter on the elegant grounds of Slovenia's Brdo Castle, once a hangout for Yugoslav royalty, was more than just unexpected. It became the capstone for a maiden presidential voyage to Europe that Bush badly needed to dispel doubts about his mastery of foreign issues, but that hadn't gone as well as hoped.
During that June 2001 trip, the president's jargon-laden joviality rubbed starched-shirt "old" Europeans the wrong way. The well-briefed Bush stayed admirably on message - but his message was one Europeans didn't want to hear.
Bush's rejection, on the eve of that trip, of the Kyoto global warming treaty, and his tenacious pursuit of missile defenses at the expense of decades-old arms-control accords, had turned European public opinion against him.
Even in pro-U.S. Slovenia, Bush's earlier verbal miscues - mistaking Slovenia for Slovakia, for instance - made him the butt of jokes.
Yet in an unexpected switch on the trip's last stop, Bush and Putin were all smiles in an encounter that altered the tone of U.S.-Russian relations. At an outdoor news conference full of bonhomie and jokes, Bush repeatedly went off script, even as Putin performed a carefully rehearsed shtick that hinted at Russia's interest in trading for NATO membership.
The two men's instant rapport, wrapped around similar views of family and patriotism, and a kind of earthy pragmatism on issues that divided them, clearly took aides by surprise. Bush's comment about sensing Putin's soul didn't even make it into the first news transcript given to reporters traveling with the president.
The truth was, no one plotting the outlines of Bush's trip could have foreseen such a development. What Bush carried in his foreign-policy satchel to that June 16, 2001, meeting seemed guaranteed to stick in the Russian president's craw. Missile defenses required abrogating bedrock arms treaties, while cementing new alliances with the formerly communist nations of Eastern Europe meant expanding NATO almost to Russia's borders.
Yet both Putin and Bush were pragmatists. Putin hoped to barter for economic advantages, while Bush didn't just see into Putin's soul, but to new avenues for dialogue.
In the end, Washington got its way: The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty was scrapped, and NATO expanded close to Russia's edge.
This was before 9/11 and before Iraq created a new geostrategic landscape in which radical Islam is again on the move and Russia, under Putin, is retreating to old ways of exerting political control through centralized power and nationalism.
Now, as Bush again pays an extended visit to the continent, European leaders seem far more attuned to his goals and tone. Poland and the Czech Republic, both now under NATO's umbrella, shrug off Russian threats tied to U.S. plans to station 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a sensitive radar array in the Czech Republic.
Putin's warning that he will aim Russian missiles at those bases seems to cast Russia again as bear, rather than as bear cub.
Yet what's striking is how little Bush's priorities have changed despite 9/11 and the passage of six years: He's still pushing missile defenses, resisting Europeans on global warming and pressing Russia to accept more U.S. military inroads close to its terrain.
Those priorities, however, seem more skewed than ever: Seeding untested missile defenses in Europe is more likely to exacerbate than ameliorate nuclear threats from Iran and does nothing to shorten the Iraq war.
And, just as with six years ago, European and Russian weaknesses let America set the agenda - no matter how out of balance that agenda may be.
Sullivan is The Plain Dealer's foreign-affairs columnist and an associate editor of the editorial pages. To reach Elizabeth Sullivan bsullivan@plaind.com
© 2007The Cleveland Plain Dealer
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14 Comments so far
Show AllPutin has the trump card and he knows it. He contols the natural gas that goes to Europe. Mess we him and he can cut off the supply bringing Europe to it's knees. Also US forces are over extened and our country is beyond broke. Putin can just sit back as we self destruct ourselves in Iraq. China is enjoying the spectacle too. Giving Bush and the Americans plenty of rope {money] to hang ourselves with.
If the Rodent is off the wagon you can bet they'll do everything to keep it quiet, and that's probably just as well. Can you image the consternation if the world knew he was drunk? The only possible up side is that maybe the Dems would find the balls to start impeachment.
Bush doesn't need a script. He's on vacation, and, he's following his penis. Those bold statements about Russia surely aroused George and started to inflate his Texas manhood. All that verbal foreplay must have given ole Georgie a blue vein throbber. That's why he couldn't attend some of those meetings. It wasn't stomach problems. George was exercising his manhood. He's on vacation.
Hoa binh
Anybody else catch that picture of Bushie falling off the wagon and guzzling german beer on the patio all by his lonesome yesterday? Must be from his unrequited lust for the German Prez....
I have give a two word diagnosis for his "ale-ment" yesterday..."shit faced"
where can we see the picture.
Hey Namvet--your analysis reminded me of my favorite Bush joke:
What happens when Dubya takes Viagra?
He grows taller!
"Those bold statements about Russia surely aroused George and started to inflate his Texas manhood."
Two problems with this statement.
1. Bu$h isn't a Texan, he's a blueblood from Connecticut.
2. Bu$h isn't a man, therefore he has no manhood to inflate.
"Anybody else catch that picture of Bushie falling off the wagon and guzzling german beer on the patio all by his lonesome yesterday?"
Really? He got caught drinkin' did he? Actually, I have suspected for sometime now that he was still a sot. He's got those alcoholic spider veins all over his face, and he just acts like he's always drunk. Either that or his mind is just permanantly sedated!
Seriously, if you do have a picture of his chug-a-luggin down some of that good ol' German brew, I would love to have the link!
Speaking of pictures...wouldn't it be great to have a picture of Angela Merkel giving him a good hard paddlin' cause he couldn't keep his hands off of her last year:-) I mean after all, since he acts like such a spoiled little brat, shouldn't he get spanked like one too?
I believe that the Bush administration wants to rekindle the cold war with Russia because he wants to return to familiar territory. All of the "experts" in his administration cut their teeth on this old anti communist philosophy of a monolithic enemy. It seems easier for him to understand.
Junior may very well have fallen off the wagon in private, but the bottle he was drinking from in the photo was plainly a Buckler non-alcoholic beer, as shown on Keith Olbermann's Countdown last night.
Causing some consternation to economists, if not the Babbling Bush himself, is the fact that Russia has received payment in euros for its natural gas and oil. If the world transfers from the US dollar to euros to pay for oil -- the euro being a much more stable currency at the moment -- that's it for us -- economic collapse in America. As it is, the dollar is sliding to the bottom and we have nothing but Bush's debt to prop it up.
We are tettering on the brink of economic disaster in this country and the inept and fatuous Bush Misadministration is doing nothing to prevent it.
Perhaps, in a way, it will be for the best -- wake up all the remaining Red Staters who haven't already realized how they've been swindled by the GOP, just as in 1932 when FDR was elected. Still, there will be vast suffering, unfortunately not to the wealthy Bush family and their friends who precipitated this crisis.
Oh don't tell me that Bu$h is still a drunk. Maybe he is still on drugs too.
We should start him on a 13 step program.
1. Impeach the scumbag.
2.............13 who cares?
no such thing as non alchoholic beer. it can be a trigger for some people with a past problem.
Right on, terryb.
Also, I think you are right, NormaJ but the net impact of this administration is to p*** off just about everyone--the middle east in general and Iran in specific, France, Russia--who's next?
But what'a alarming is that there seems to be no sense of why you pick a fight or what you do or how it stretches the limits of your friends' patience and your people's patients.
Willo and RSJ you raise important points about the long-term economic impact of this disastrous war. That leadership went for immediate profit to a small circle while eviscerating the national treasury is a heist beyond imagination. On the plus side (although the fact the US is the major global arm's dealer means other nations ARE still buying "the product") here again history shows by example that brute force has its costs, and that strong armies do not guarantee national security or longevity. ONLY a balance between the interests of profit (elite) and those of "the people," between competition and cooperation, a modicum of "security" and greater investment in citizens creativity (and education for the young) are viable values. The world is watching as the big giant and bully indeed slowly falls on his sword. There will be dues to pay. That Is inevitable, how much mother nature chips into the "therapy" process is yet to be seen; and that factors into the economic scale of events, too. Call it karmic blowback.
I second terryb. An ex-alcoholic doesn't drink "non-alcoholic" beer unless he's doing something else besides.