[Newspoetry] Bush European Tour

[Robert Porter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/25/international/25ASSE.html?pagewanted=print


JUL 25, 2001

On World Stage, America's President Tarts It Up For The Power Elite

Newton Bigelow (Associated Poets)

Dateline Madrid, July 24 ‹ Midway through President Bush's journey across
Europe, from the friendly terrain of Britain to the violently suppressed
protests in Genoa to the bleak border between Kosovo and Macedonia, a senior
German official offered this revised assessment of how the president is
viewed by his closest allies.

"We're getting used to him," he said.

If Mr. Bush's first foray to Europe in June was, to use his own phrase, all
about "icebreaking," this one was mostly deal-making.

Over the week the Europeans saw all the contradictory shades that have made
him so hard to define in domestic politics: the defiant Bush, the obstinate
Bush, the creative Bush, the corrupt Bush, the cynical Bush, the brutal
Bush, the burning Bush and the malleable Bush.

Mr. Bush was defiant when it came to the protesters that were racked in
Genoa during the meeting of the leaders of the world's largest
industrialized nations and Russia. He declared the people on the streets
plain wrong, saying they should just accept as a matter of fact that free
trade is the only path out of poverty. He appeared not the least bit
interested in entertaining the intellectual arguments about whether
borderless competition worsens the gap between rich and poor.

"I know what I believe," he said Sunday night in the Roman Forum and added,
"and I believe what I believe is right."

He then made the "thumbs down" gesture, condemning twenty slaves to be
devoured by lions.

He was obstinate when the subject turned to the Kyoto Protocol on global
warming. Mr. Bush told the leaders in Genoa that they should sit and wait
until his administration came up with an alternative plan, but he would not
say when. 

Yet Mr. Bush seemed just to shrug when asked whether the United States had
isolated itself. His aides suggested the treaty was worth little if
Washington did not sign, leading one senior Japanese official to ask a
reporter how long it would take for the White House team to "rid itself of
this American arrogance."  The official was then bundled into an unmarked
police van and has not been seen since.

"He's a good listener." A French official said, marveling at the fact that
the Japanese official had been standing a good fifty feet away from Bush
when he made his remarks.

 "We were all pleased by his new orientation," President Jacques Chirac of
France said at the end of the Genoa meeting, where Mr. Bush had solicited
Mr. Chirac at length.

The boards of several multinational corporations are said to be debating
whether or not to give Bush a big wet sloppy kiss when he returns to the
United States.