Free Republic

Jeff Gedmin lured me to Berlin the other week with the prospect of good talk — specifically, an interesting exchange of views with some journalists, politicians, policymakers, Foreign Ministry planners, Britain's ambassador to Germany, and the U.S. chargé d'affaires (our old ambassador has left, and no replacement has been named). Jeff, who is fluent in German, runs the Aspen Institute Berlin, which he has made the de facto U.S. embassy. I was curious to learn whether the Rice-Bush charm offensive had had any discernible effect on Germany's decidedly anti-Bush, anti-American policies. I suppose I should have divined the answer from...

For his 50th birthday, a wealthy German placed a full-page ad in a left-leaning newspaper thanking America for 50 years of freedom and peace. He says the ad and the response it generated were well worth it. For Manfred Petri, an independently wealthy former businessman from the Bavarian town of Hof, the day George W. Bush arrived in Mainz for his visit to Germany was a day to celebrate. It was February 23, 2005, which also happened to be Manfred Petri's 50th birthday. The day began with breakfast in bed, which would be followed later by a family celebration with...

PRESIDENTIAL NEWS OF THE DAY: Earlier today, President Bush telephoned Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to express deep sorrow after the wounding by U.S. forces of freed hostage Giuliana Sgrena and the killing of a member of her Italian escort in Iraq. Also today, Syrian President Bashar Assad announced a two-stage pullback of his forces to the Lebanese border, but failed to address broad international demands that he completely withdraw Syria's 15,000 troops after nearly 30 years in the country. Assad also did not respond to President Bush's demand just a day earlier that Syria withdraw all its troops and...

Condi Rice is heralding a shift in long-term US policy to transform the Middle East Timothy Garton AshThursday February 10, 2005The Guardian We are told that Condoleezza Rice received her unusual first name because her parents liked the Italian musical term condolcezza , meaning "with sweetness". What might condoleezza mean? A gifted Italian translator emails me that "it doesn't immediately suggest sweetness to an Italian ear". Yet there's no doubt that the new US secretary of state has conducted an impressive charm offensive during her lightning tour of Europe. She has presented a more elegant face, spoken a more nuanced...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. President George W. Bush's "charm offensive" in Old Europe largely fizzled, but that was okay. The issues that divide the United States and the European Union are still there, and that's good. The EU still wants Washington to join the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty and the International Criminal Court, while planning to sell weapons to China and still criticizing American policy in Iraq. In opposing the EU on all these issues, the Bush administration is acting wisely in defense of U.S. national interests. An issue that was missing from the various...

Dick Morris: US is ready for an Iron Lady 11feb05 AS she toured Europe this week, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was like a rock star - her every movement, her every meeting covered by an adoring media. The first black female US secretary of state is doing in public what she has always done in private - speaking frankly about her nation's priorities and the realities of the post-Cold War world. As she jokes with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, loosening up his dogmatic anti-US policies, lectures Russia about freedom and warns Israel of tough decisions ahead, one thing...

Five days that shook world politicsBy M K Bhadrakumar There is no Cold War ahead. Yet the period between February 20 and 24 was extraordinary. Seldom have fault-lines in world politics surfaced with such clarity. If the principal objective of President George Bush's European tour (February 20-24) was to heal trans-Atlantic rifts stemming from the great differences over the Iraq war, it was a success. Europe was willing to let bygones be bygones. But it became apparent during Bush's harmonious tour of "Old Europe" that profound differences remained between the European vision and the neo-conservative world view that the Bush...

The conservative Die Welt comes up with the day's oddest and most weirdly thought-out editorial in which the author manages to both compare Bush to Franklin D. Roosevelt and to crown him "the Steve Jobs of world politics." Essentially, the paper says, Bush wants to be a great reformer, both in terms of domestic and foreign politics. Domestically, he wants to revamp America to the same degree FDR did with his New Deal, only for Bush, the program might be called the "Ownership Society," the paper says. "The target is: We want to break with all losers, domestically that means...

US leader fails to win over Germans By Rhea Wessel FOR THE STRAITS TIMES FRANKFURT - CITIZENS in Mainz and Frankfurt gave a collective sigh of relief last week when US President George W. Bush left Germany. It was not just the inconvenience: blocked autobahns and a clogged airport. Germans, in general, are sceptical about a love affair between German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Mr Bush. 'They smiled a lot for the camera, and since there were lots of cameras, they smiled all the time,' said Frankfurt finance worker Claudia Ehler. Few Germans seriously believe the two leaders have put...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived at the Wiesbaden Army Airfield on Wednesday dressed all in black. She was wearing a black skirt that hit just above the knee, and it was topped with a black coat that fell to mid-calf. The coat, with its seven gold buttons running down the front and its band collar, called to mind a Marine's dress uniform or the "save humanity" ensemble worn by Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix."

Nearly two years ago I wrote that the liberation of Iraq was changing minds in the Middle East. Before March 2003, the authoritarian regimes and media elites of the Middle East focused the discontents of their people on the United States and Israel. I thought the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime was directing their minds to a different question: how to build a decent government and a decent society. I think I overestimated how much progress was being made at the time. But the spectacle of 8 million Iraqis braving terrorists to vote on January 30 seems to have moved...

The United States of America and the uniting states of Europe are the two richest, most democratic and most powerful entities on Earth. The split within the European Union over Iraq, and persisting tensions in the trans-Atlantic relationship, do not diminish their unrivalled capacity to influence global affairs. What is at issue is the manner in which threats are perceived and confronted, not the core democratic values which define the West. The aggressive, go-it-alone style of President George Bush's first term was the very antithesis of the cumbersome consensus-building required within the 25-nation EU. However, Mr Bush's lauded visit to...

George Bush knew Vladimir Putin would be defensive when Bush brought up the pace of democratic reform in Russia in their private meeting at the end of Bush's four-day, three-city tour of Europe. But when Bush talked about the Kremlin's crackdown on the media and explained that democracies require a free press, the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed, TIME magazine will report on Monday. If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. "Putin thought we'd fired Dan Rather," says...

# NEW YORK, Feb. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- When George W. Bush confronted Vladimir Putin last week about the freedom of the press in Russia, Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe reports, Putin shot back with an attack of his own: "We didn't criticize you when you fired those reporters at CBS." Details of the meeting, which included just the two presidents and their translators inside the historic castle that overlooks the Slovak capital of Bratislava, are reported in the March 7 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, February 28). It's not clear how well Putin understands the controversy that led...

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia The popular uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine have raised the morale of the small opposition movements in Belarus and Moldova, and they said Wednesday that they were more determined than ever to continue the struggle for democracy. . "It will take time, but it will come," said Andrei Safonov, a political analyst and journalist from Transnistria, a separatist and internationally unrecognized enclave in eastern Moldova that is ruled by an authoritarian group backed by Moscow. . Civil society groups attending a conference in Bratislava on Wednesday, the day before President George W. Bush was to meet with President...

Bratislava (Slovakia), Feb. 25 (Reuters): Incensed by US talk of a lack of press freedom in Russia, two Russian reporters tried to turn the tables on President George W. Bush during his summit news conference with Vladimir Putin yesterday. After Bush said he had raised concerns about Russia’s democracy in talks with the Russian President and felt reassured, he suddenly found himself on the defensive. “What is that lack of freedom all about?” a reporter from the Russian news agency Interfax asked the US President. Before Bush could answer, the reporter then turned on Putin and demanded to know why...

PRESIDENTIAL NEWS OF THE DAY: The President and First Family returned safely from Europe late Thursday. They are spending a quiet weekend in Washington, where GWB went for one of his now-famous "maniac" bike rides this morning. Yesterday, the White House website put up a lot of photos from last week's trip. Most were taken by WH photographers. They frequently show different perspectives from those taken by the media, and many are only available on the WH website. Today and tomorrow, the Dose threads will have a retrospective on the trip, using mostly WH photos. Today's Dose covers the events...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- Imagine a world where Russia and the European Union of 25 nations, and Russia and China, and the EU and China, all find more in common with each other than with the United States? Unimaginable, you say. And you would be right. But the seeds of such an anti-U.S. entente were planted in Europe this week. In Brussels, President Bush told the EU3 - France, the UK and Germany - that it was their responsibility to quash Iran's nuclear ambitions, and the U.S. would not negotiate directly with the totalitarian theocracy in Tehran. The U.S....

Recent books have raved that the European Union is the way of the future. In contrast, a supposedly exhausted, broke and post-imperial United States chases the terrorist chimera, running up debts and deficits as it tilts at the autocratic windmills of the Arab World. That caricature frames the visit of the President to Europe as transatlantic pundits demand a softer George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld. Stop the childish bickering and the tiresome neocon preening, we are lectured ad nauseam by Euro and American elites. Don’t divide Europe, we hear endlessly. Even though the European press, EU leaders, and...

Bill Sammon’s report in the Washington Times should come as no surprise that there is liberal, anti-Bush media bias in Europe. It is refreshing, however, to hear Slovakia Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda explicitly blaming the news media for unfairly turning the public against President Bush with its biased news coverage. At a news conference, Dzurinda was reminded that, even though some European governments may have supported the Iraq War, the public often did not. Mr. Dzurinda responded by telling the journalists, including one from CNN, that he was "shocked" to see media outlets like CNN and the British Broadcasting Corp....

During Bush visit, chancellor says he and president have settled their differences Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was determined to make the best out of Wednesday's much-anticipated visit by U.S. President George W. Bush. But just when the chancellor wanted to make an especially good impression, he ran into a bit of trouble. ”I would like to raise my glass to German-American friendship and cooperation,” Schröder told the guests assembled for a midday banquet in Mainz. But then the chancellor added: ”That is if I had a glass.” But when no one rushed to give him one, the chancellor was forced to...

The Tide of Freedom Shakespeare's Brutus declares, "There is a tide in the affairs of men," and its meaning, when properly grasped, opens new chapters in human history. The abiding tide in human affairs is that of freedom, sometimes receding and at other times in full flood. It is in the wake of this tide beginning to swell in the Middle East that U.S. President George Bush arrived in Europe this week. Bush -- like Ronald Reagan, his political hero -- has shown an uncanny ability to grasp the meaning of freedom's tide in history and boldly "take the current...

For Immediate ReleaseFebruary 26, 2005 President's Radio Address      Audio THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This past week I was in Europe, where I had good discussions with our friends and allies about how to meet the mutual challenges we face: spreading freedom and democracy, defeating terrorism, expanding prosperity and promoting peace. In our meetings, we reaffirmed the vital importance of the transatlantic alliance for advancing these common interests and values. Now that I'm back home, I'm eager to move ahead with one of my top domestic priorities: strengthening and saving Social Security. I have already met with tens of thousands...

February 25, 2005 -- NICE, FRANCE AFTER a week of touring western and eastern Europe, it could not be more evident to me that the balance of power on this continent is shifting in President Bush's favor. The change is evident in the way he is received on his tour and in the internal developments with which each nation of "Old" Europe has to deal. Nobody here expected Bush to be re-elected.

U.S. & Europe, Inc. EAST LANSING, Michigan The main purpose behind President George W. Bush's visit to Europe is said to be mending fences with European allies. Beyond the waxing and waning of rhetoric, however, the health of the alliance was never in doubt. Alarmist analyses about the health of the trans-Atlantic alliance, so popular in the wake of the Iraq war, underestimated the ties that bind the affluent, industrialized, and powerful countries of the global North. They failed to recognize - or deliberately ignored - the common grand design that underpins the North Atlantic "Concert," the major industrialized democracies...

Two years ago, as the United States prepared to invade Iraq, much of the opposition in Europe focused on the need to restrain the American "hyperpower" from running roughshod over international norms. But as President Bush nears the end of his goodwill tour of Europe this week, it is increasingly clear the attitude has shifted. With the United States pinned down in Iraq, where the continued deployment of nearly 150,000 troops has severely strained the U.S. military, European leaders no longer expect further military expeditions in Bush's second term. And so they have been gracious -- but assertive, thus reflecting...

Equipped with idealistic rhetoric and armed with a mandated reelection, President Bush trekked his way through Europe this week with a pocket full of political bargaining chips. This is a multi-tiered trip with layered intentions. At face value, it is an effort to strengthen the diplomatic and political ties that have been weakened in the last four years. However there are deeper motivations in play. There are very particular issues that need a political coalition to confront, namely the Iran/Syria axis, and the hazy role that Russia is playing in the matter. However, deep in some of our hearts, we...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Slovakia leader hits media on Bush slantBy Bill SammonTHE WASHINGTON TIMESPublished February 25, 2005 BRATISLAVA, Slovakia -- The prime minister of Slovakia yesterday blamed the media for unfairly turning the European public against President Bush by negatively slanting coverage on Iraq.     After meeting with Mr. Bush twice in less than a week, Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda told reporters that the president also blamed the press for portraying him as eager to invade Iran to eradicate its nuclear program.     "President Bush told me in Brussels: 'I am so unhappy that media creates the picture that Bush wants...

London, England - The papers of Europe are full of warm headlines and quotes regarding President Bush and his latest visit to Brussels and beyond. Today, the headline in The Times of London proclaims “Leaders accentuate the positive.” The paper suggests President Bush scored points with the German people. He said, “For some, September 11 was a passing moment in history. For me and my government, and many in the U.S., it permanently changed our outlook on the world. That outlook caused us sometimes to talk past each other.” It is clear that President Bush is indeed enjoying a warmer...

US President Bush's love fest with Europe continued on Thursday in Bratislava. Sort of. Leading up to the US-Russia summit, Bush fired off some heavy critiques in the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The partnership, however, remains strong. Could Europe learn from Bush's heavy-handedness? The post-meeting press conference in Bratislava on Thursday evening featuring US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin was more or less exactly what was expected. Indeed, it was a lot like the atmosphere Bush had sought to create throughout his five-day trip through Europe. Friendly. Positive. Stressing areas of agreement. Indeed, while...

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David's Medienkritik....Bush´s Visit to Mainz: A Demonstration of Success David's Medienkritik organized a successful rally for President Bush in Mainz, Germany yesterday. There are more pictures and descriptions at the site, and many links to sites with even more reports and pictures as well. David's Medienkritik has been getting a lot of well-deserved links from the Blogosphere. David's Medienkritik is an English language blog about Media reports in Germany. It's a great place for non-German readers to read what's happening in the German press. longjack

President Bush’s moral-high-ground, idea-driven foreign policy was well represented in an uber-speech he delivered in Brussels and throughout his trip to Old and New Europe this week. He again pulled from Natan Sharansky’s big thought on the transforming power of democracy and freedom, stating in Brussels that “Regimes that terrorize their own people will not hesitate to support terror abroad,” that “the false stability of dictatorship and stagnation can only lead to deeper resentment,” and that “Lasting successful reform in a broader Middle East will not be imposed from the outside. It must be chosen from within.” So, while...

You can always count on the French to be the French. This was Lesson No. 1 on George W. Bush's most excellent tour of Europe. He received moral tutelage from the Germans, whom we had not expected to hear from on the subject of morality for at least the next thousand years. Jacques Chirac greeted him with the German proposal to scuttle NATO in favor of the European Union, and for good measure made a point of speaking only French, which he speaks well, instead of English, which he speaks passably, at the president's dinner for him. The president had...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived at the Wiesbaden Army Airfield on Wednesday dressed all in black. She was wearing a black skirt that hit just above the knee, and it was topped with a black coat that fell to mid-calf. The coat, with its seven gold buttons running down the front and its band collar, called to mind a Marine's dress uniform or the "save humanity" ensemble worn by Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix." As Rice walked out to greet the troops, the coat blew open in a rather swashbuckling way to reveal the top of a pair of...

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a glowing assessment Friday of his meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush, calling it very positive and saying it set an agenda for cooperation in the coming years. "We are satisfied with the talks and their results. I have the feeling that our American partners would have the same assessment," Putin said at a news conference with Slovakia's president a day after his summit with Bush. "The meeting went in a very positive way, in its character and in the chosen themes." Putin said he spoke to Bush for at...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Europe is realizing that US President George W. Bush's "vision" might work and should stop demanding from the US "a high price for its political favors." After comparing Bush's visit to Europe to others by his predecessors, the Wall Street Journal concluded that "Bush is really following in Regan's footsteps" in 1987 when he provided a post-Cold War vision of a reunited Germany. Similarly to Reagan's cry to "tear down" the Berlin Wall, Bush's "vision of spreading democracy", so derided in Europe before Iraq's elections last month, "seems not only to be working but also winning some...

Europe decides that Bush may be right after all. Friday, February 25, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST Visits by U.S. Presidents to Europe tend to have a template-making quality: Wilson, the peace maker, in Paris, 1919; Truman, the victor, at Potsdam, 1945; Kennedy, the stalwart, in Berlin, 1963; Reagan, the visionary, in Berlin, 1987. If President Bush's trip this week has some kind of new theme, the word for it is probably conciliation. But our sense is that Mr. Bush is really following in Reagan's footsteps. Admittedly, this thought is not original: Der Spiegel beat us to it. Still, it says...

Chalk it up as a second VE Day (Victory in Europe), and credit President Bush for following Winston Churchill's wise counsel: "In victory: magnanimity." Mr. Bush's low-key shellacking of France's crook in chief, Jacques Chirac, signals the political defeat of "Old Europe" on the issue of Iraq. On Monday, before a state dinner in Belgium, a reporter asked Mr. Bush if he would invite Mr. Chirac to his Texas ranch. Mr. Bush quipped, "I'm looking for a good cowboy." Remember, "cowboy" is Euro-snob code for "pathological American suffering from hyper-power and gigantisme militaire."

All cowboys now By Austin Bay Chalk it up as a second VE Day (Victory in Europe), and credit President Bush for following Winston Churchill's wise counsel: "In victory: magnanimity." Mr. Bush's low-key shellacking of France's crook in chief, Jacques Chirac, signals the political defeat of "Old Europe" on the issue of Iraq. On Monday, before a state dinner in Belgium, a reporter asked Mr. Bush if he would invite Mr. Chirac to his Texas ranch. Mr. Bush quipped, "I'm looking for a good cowboy." Remember, "cowboy" is Euro-snob code for "pathological American suffering from hyper-power and gigantisme militaire." Mr....

A thought for Europeans as George W. Bush returns to Washington. Instead of scowling when Mr Bush speaks of liberty, Europeans should recall who wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Then they should deliver their own freedom speech. Two small episodes this week shone a light into the dark corner into which many in Europe have backed themselves. The first was the uncomfortable shuffling of feet in Brussels' Concert Noble banquet hall as Mr Bush set out America's strategic commitment to the advance of democracy. The second was the lukewarm reception from some leaders of "Old Europe" for...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived at the Wiesbaden Army Airfield on Wednesday dressed all in black. She was wearing a black skirt that hit just above the knee, and it was topped with a black coat that fell to mid-calf. The coat, with its seven gold buttons running down the front and its band collar, called to mind a Marine's dress uniform or the "save humanity" ensemble worn by Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix." ... The boots had a high, slender heel that is not particularly practical. But it is a popular silhouette because it tends to elongate and...

At last President George W Bush found some European fans yesterday. After three days of muted receptions, Mr Bush received a far cheerier welcome behind the old Iron Curtain as enthusiastic Slovaks applauded him for visiting them on the last stop of his tour across the continent.Thousands of Slovaks defied swirling snow and a bitter wind to wait for several hours to hear Mr Bush speak in the heart of their capital, Bratislava. "We love him," said Arlena Turceanova, a 47-year-old lawyer, bursting with the pride felt by many Slovaks that Mr Bush chose their little country for his third...

The little flute made the trite racket of meaningless "friendship" and the snakes all looked extremely European. Thus does the grand fence-mending excursion of George W. Bush now happily draw to a close. For a four-night tour, it had everything — fancy dinners, giant-sized photo ops, flatulent rhetoric, and close media analyses of handshakes and asides. In fact, Bush's charm offensive had everything — except charm. That leaves only offensiveness, which of course was provided by the Europeans and their lighthearted media. Columnists and news items blasted Bush and the U.S. — one Guardian ranter: "Why are we welcoming this...

GEORGE Dubya Bush crossed the Atlantic in a show of diplomatic strength to bully European leaders into following the example of Tony Blair. He failed. Europe stood firm. The EU will have its own Foreign Minister under the new constitution, with a foreign policy reflecting the views of its 25 member nations. The EU will also have a steadily enhanced military dimension, acting in concert with Nato but not under American command. And Europe will trade with whom it likes, including China, in whatever goods it wishes (including arms), whatever Washington says. Europe is developing its own momentum and is...

President Bush continued his European trip today as he spoke in Bratislava, Slovakia to an enthusiastic crowd. The President later met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and both later spoke to the media. The First Couple also gave their best wishes to Pope John Paul II, who is recovering from emergency surgery. Enjoy your daily dose of Dubya!

Despite the bonhomie and the conciliatory rhetoric, the first foreign tour of George W. Bush's second term has not been an easy one. The invasion of Iraq has done lasting damage to the Atlantic Alliance and it will require more than a brief presidential visit to Europe to put it right. The problem for Mr Bush is that Americo-scepticism is popular in the three main opponents of the invasion. In France, it chimes with a Gaullist view of the world that resents American hegemony. In Germany, it taps into a pacificist streak that favours "soft" diplomatic persuasion over "hard" military...

MAINZ, Germany — Thousands of people who gathered Wednesday to protest President Bush as he visited with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had a few choice words for the president. Under a light snow, protesters packed a square on Kaiserstrasse in the heart of the government district to object to Bush’s foreign policy. They carried signs and made speeches lambasting the administration on a wide array of issues, from the Iraq war and prisoner treatment at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the U.S. refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. “He thinks he is the...