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Bush filmed in underwear BBC Ireland correspondent at Dromoland Castle When the US president arranged a visit to Ireland in an election year he wanted to make sure the folks back home could see him - but not dressed in a vest. And that is why there was a wave of international censorship after George W Bush appeared at the window of an Irish castle wearing a white undergarment, rather than his traditional shirt and tie. It may have been bedtime, but the president was wide awake to the potential public relations dangers. After spotting the camera, he quickly...

MEDIA MATTERS Cronkite: Speech by Bush 'masterful but worrisome' Former CBS newsman questions president's conviction, cites failure to 'follow through' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: November 29, 2003 4:30 p.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Walter Cronkite, the former CBS news anchor who writes a weekly opinion piece for King Features Syndicate uses a recent column to describe the foreign-policy speech President Bush gave recently in London as ''eloquent, idealistic and worrisome.'' Walter Cronkite Cronkite says Bush's address was masterfully crafted to defend his foreign policy against widespread European hostility, although parts of it sounded a bit ''off-key'', leading Cronkite to question the president's...

I stood on the sidewalk in London the other day and watched thousands of antiwar, anti-George Bush, anti-Tony Blair protesters pass by. They chanted every antiwar slogan you could imagine and many you couldn't print. It was entertaining — but also depressing, because it was so disconnected from the day's other news. Just a few hours earlier, terrorists in Istanbul had blown up a British-owned bank and the British consulate, killing or wounding scores of British and Turkish civilians. Yet nowhere could I find a single sign in London reading, "Osama, How Many Innocents Did You Kill Today?" or "Baathists...

There's a lot of taking and little giving in this special relationshipNovember 22 marked the 40th anniversary of John F Kennedy's assassination. "For of those to whom much is given, much is required," he famously remarked in 1961. It was his idea not only of the citizen's relationship to the nation but of the US's obligation to the world. However, George Bush has changed the maxim, at least in regard to Britain: "For to those of whom much is required, nothing is given." In his speech of November 18 at the Banqueting Hall (avoiding an appearance before parliament, where backbenchers...

<p>British Prime Minister Tony Blair seems determined to attempt the difficult feat of dancing at two weddings at the same time.</p> <p>No sooner had President Bush left British soil after last week's state visit to London than French President Jacques Chirac showed up on the doorstep of Number 10 Downing Street. Mr. Chirac brought with him a gaggle of French cabinet ministers for what the Guardian newspaper called "a post-Iraq kiss-and-make-up session with Tony Blair and colleagues." Yikes.</p>

Despite all the doom and gloom forecast by liberal media naysayers, President Bush's trip to London was, in fact, a moderate success. Bush flew into the storm of anti-American dissent, and demonstrated to the world that he is indeed a true statesman, an astute man of character and vision. This certainly belies the vapid smears of the propagandistic BBC and its chief ally, the hardcore socialist movement, which have caricatured Bush as some kind of dopey, gung-ho Texan cowboy. Flagrantly biased journalists such as Katie Kay of the BBC are a disgrace to their profession, and are indifferent to alienating...

THE Queen is furious with President George W. Bush after his state visit caused thousands of pounds of damage to her gardens at Buckingham Palace. Royal officials are now in touch with the Queen's insurers and Prime Minister Tony Blair to find out who will pick up the massive repair bill. Palace staff said they had never seen the Queen so angry as when she saw how her perfectly-mantained lawns had been churned up after being turned into helipads with three giant H landing markings for the Bush visit. The rotors of the President's Marine Force One helicopter and two...

GROUND FARCE 1 Nov 23 2003 Queen's fury as Bush goons wreck garden Exclusive By Terry O'Hanlon THE Queen is furious with President George W. Bush after his state visit caused thousands of pounds of damage to her gardens at Buckingham Palace. Royal officials are now in touch with the Queen's insurers and Prime Minister Tony Blair to find out who will pick up the massive repair bill. Palace staff said they had never seen the Queen so angry as when she saw how her perfectly-mantained lawns had been churned up after being turned into helipads with three giant H...

It may be too early to know how George W Bush’s state visit to London, the first ever by a US President, will playback in Peoria. But it seems that part of the America media, focusing on sporadic anti-American demonstrations in London, has decided to present it as a symbol of “global anger against the United States.” What has happened in London in the past few days, however, is more complex. To be sure, London has witnessed a series of demonstrations in the past week or so. None, however, attracted more than a few hundred people, although the “final bouquet”,...

New York-bound Czech flight forced to land in Iceland Posted: November 23, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for the last 25 years. © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com When a New York-bound Czech Airlines flight was diverted to land in Iceland after a bomb threat was e-mailed to the U.S. Embassy in Prague, no bomb was found – but, according to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, two tons of machine-guns were discovered in the baggage hold....

Dec. 1 issue — The timing was, at the very least, interesting. At Buckingham Palace on Wednesday night, the president of the United States and the Queen of England traded toasts to their common birthright. George W. Bush did his aw-shucks bit about the pomp and pageantry, telling reporters that he had to rent his white tie and tails (the queen sipped Puligny-Montrachet ’96; the teetotaling president drank Coke). But there was no mistaking their common purpose, to stand fast in the defense of liberty against the tyranny of Islamic fanaticism. The next morning, the fanatics apparently sent back a...

Revealed: what the tearful President told the grieving relatives of Britain's war dead By Severin Carrell 23 November 2003 It was an unscripted moment in a morning of minutely choreographed state ceremony. It was the moment the three-year-old son of a British soldier killed in Iraq looked President George Bush in the face and said: "My daddy is up in heaven." Mr Bush's face crumpled, and he stuttered the reply: "Oh, I'm so sorry." Beck Seymour had, in one short sentence, disarmed the world's most powerful leader and caught the emotions of a room full of war widows and grieving...

Some of President Bush's most strident critics acknowledge that his trip last week to Britain was not the failure they expected, while his allies see it as a historic moment in international diplomacy.     The keystone was Mr. Bush's speech Wednesday, peppered with self-deprecating humor and reaffirming the "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain.     "The British people are the sort of partners you want when serious work needs doing," Mr. Bush said, thanking Prime Minister Tony Blair for being his staunch ally in "a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East."     Mr. Bush also vowed that the...

<p>A couple of major stories pushed President Bush's trip to London off the front pages. Until the al Qaeda attacks on British targets in Turkey and the arrest of pop singer Michael Jackson in California, the international media had been focused on English rabble-rousers protesting Mr. Bush's presence in the United Kingdom. Truth be told — there wasn't much of a spectacle in London anyway.</p>

As President Bush flew over the North Atlantic on Friday, heading home from three days as the houseguest of Queen Elizabeth, he switched his attention from the glamour of royal Britain to the grit of American politics. From Air Force One, with his politically critical Medicare bill in precarious straits on Capitol Hill, Mr. Bush placed calls to pressure wavering House Republicans. Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political aide, had already made calls from Buckingham Palace, House Republicans said. So when the presidential helicopter landed at 6:20 p.m. on the White House South Lawn, it was no surprise that Mr....

The Way We Were By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: November 23, 2003 LONDON We've all had our ups and downs since 9/11, but last week's events in London tested even my congenital optimism. I was a participant in the 50th anniversary celebration of the Marshall scholarships. The Marshalls were created by the British government to honor Secretary of State George Marshall and to express Britain's gratitude for the Marshall Plan. Over the last 50 years, some 1,400 Americans have attended Oxford, Cambridge and other British universities on Marshall scholarships, paid for by British taxpayers. Twenty-eight years ago, I was one...

They slaughter protesters, too The atrocities in Istanbul hold lessons for both George W. Bush and those who demonstrated against his visit to Britain Andrew Rawnsley, political journalist of the year Sunday November 23, 2003 The Observer Just because George W. Bush says something is so doesn't make it axiomatically wrong. The man is right: 'Freedom is a beautiful thing.' Like many things of beauty, freedom can also be very fragile. That most basic of freedoms - the freedom to go about your innocent business without being blown up - was cruelly denied to the Britons and Turks killed and...

For a visiting North American, there was something terribly sad about London last week. Everything had been prepared for a glorious celebration of Anglo-American friendship. The flags had been massed, the backdrop was beautiful - but the stage was empty. I felt that I had wandered into Miss Havisham's bedroom: everything had been readied for an event that never quite took place. The protests themselves were not so impressive: they felt much less energetic and purposeful than the last anti-war protest I attended in London, the October 2002 march on Hyde Park. What was most disturbing was not the vehement...

Would you believe it? Not only can that Texan halfwit speak in proper sentences, he is even capable of reading a good speech and not fluffing his lines. It only goes to show what you can do with a speechwriter and some coaching. The response to President George W Bush's speech on Wednesday has been almost universally (and so typically Britishly) condescending. Few have criticised its content; since it ranks as one of the finest delivered by a visiting leader; that would be a sneer too far. Instead, reaction has been surprise, either feigned or genuine, that he managed to...

Fri 21 Nov 2003 2:10pm (UK) Real Bush 'At Odds with Media Caricature' By Chris Moncrieff, PA News US President George Bush is “totally at odds” with his media image, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said today. Mr Campbell, an opponent of the war with Iraq, spoke out on the ePolitix website about his discussions with the President during the state visit. He said that they discussed directly issues such as Iraq, the Middle East, Guantanamo Bay, Kyoto and trade sanctions. “He is personally extremely engaging. He has a well-developed sense of humour, is self-deprecating and when he...