"You didn't hear President Bush much talk about anything."
IHT: White House Letter: In Latin America, messy foray for Bush
George W. Bush sometimes seems to be in a Murphy's Law period of his presidency, when everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
So after one of his most miserable weeks ever at the White House, things didn't get a lot better on the president's messy four-day trip to Latin America.
There were violent anti-Bush riots in the streets of Argentina's favorite beach resort, Mar Del Plata. There was an anti-American rally of 25,000 people led by President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, the show-stealing White House nemesis. Then Bush abruptly exited an international summit meeting as talks over a U.S.-promoted trade deal hit an impasse. A news conference far from Washington was dominated by questions about Karl Rove and the CIA leak case.
Not least, the always-on-time, early-rising Bush found himself so much at the mercy of Argentina's late, leisurely scheduling that on Friday he sat down to a dinner with Western Hemisphere leaders at 10:15 p.m., already past his bedtime, and was not back at his hotel room until nearly 12:40 a.m.
The next day, an administration official said Bush would skip a two-hour Saturday lunch with the leaders because of "time served" at dinner the night before. But the president's planned escape was soon moot because the contentious summit talks ran so late, some three hours over schedule at that point, that Argentina simply canceled the lunch.
So by 3:30 p.m., evidently on an empty stomach, Bush said he was sticking to his plans - his itinerary called for a 4:05 p.m. Air Force One departure from Argentina to Brazil - and he did, leaving an assistant secretary of state behind to sweat out the trade talks. They ended hours later in failure.
"I didn't get any read-out of the president's mood," a senior administration official told reporters when asked about Bush's state of mind. "But I can't imagine that he's mad."
Well, he certainly didn't look happy a lot of the time. Polls show that Bush is the most unpopular U.S. president ever in Latin America, but what was most striking about watching him on his trip to Argentina, Brazil and Panama, which ends Monday night, is how separated he sometimes seemed from the cacophony around him.
In short, the president of the United States is not in charge when he is one among many big-winded leaders and another nation's guest.
When reporters told Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, that they hadn't heard Bush say much about his proposed trade deal, Hadley replied, to some laughter, "You didn't hear President Bush much talk about anything." Read more
George W. Bush sometimes seems to be in a Murphy's Law period of his presidency, when everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
So after one of his most miserable weeks ever at the White House, things didn't get a lot better on the president's messy four-day trip to Latin America.
There were violent anti-Bush riots in the streets of Argentina's favorite beach resort, Mar Del Plata. There was an anti-American rally of 25,000 people led by President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, the show-stealing White House nemesis. Then Bush abruptly exited an international summit meeting as talks over a U.S.-promoted trade deal hit an impasse. A news conference far from Washington was dominated by questions about Karl Rove and the CIA leak case.
Not least, the always-on-time, early-rising Bush found himself so much at the mercy of Argentina's late, leisurely scheduling that on Friday he sat down to a dinner with Western Hemisphere leaders at 10:15 p.m., already past his bedtime, and was not back at his hotel room until nearly 12:40 a.m.
The next day, an administration official said Bush would skip a two-hour Saturday lunch with the leaders because of "time served" at dinner the night before. But the president's planned escape was soon moot because the contentious summit talks ran so late, some three hours over schedule at that point, that Argentina simply canceled the lunch.
So by 3:30 p.m., evidently on an empty stomach, Bush said he was sticking to his plans - his itinerary called for a 4:05 p.m. Air Force One departure from Argentina to Brazil - and he did, leaving an assistant secretary of state behind to sweat out the trade talks. They ended hours later in failure.
"I didn't get any read-out of the president's mood," a senior administration official told reporters when asked about Bush's state of mind. "But I can't imagine that he's mad."
Well, he certainly didn't look happy a lot of the time. Polls show that Bush is the most unpopular U.S. president ever in Latin America, but what was most striking about watching him on his trip to Argentina, Brazil and Panama, which ends Monday night, is how separated he sometimes seemed from the cacophony around him.
In short, the president of the United States is not in charge when he is one among many big-winded leaders and another nation's guest.
When reporters told Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, that they hadn't heard Bush say much about his proposed trade deal, Hadley replied, to some laughter, "You didn't hear President Bush much talk about anything." Read more
posted by exoplanet at 5:44 PM
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