Strange way of meeting and greeting

"President Bush likes speed golf and speed tourism — this is the man who did the treasures of Red Square in less than 20 minutes — but here in the lake-studded capital of a nation desperately eager to connect with America, he set a record."

So reports the NY Times in relation to George Bushs' recent visit to Hanoi. The NY Times correspondent contrasts Bushs' visit to that of then Pres. Bill Clinton exactly 6 years earlier. Clinton was truly out and about meeting people and seeing things for himself on the ground.

But this reported comment by a Bush official about how the President "met" the locals is rather startling:

"On Saturday, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, conceded that the president had not come into direct contact with ordinary Vietnamese, but said that they connected anyway.

“If you’d been part of the president’s motorcade as we’ve shuttled back and forth,” he said, reporters would have seen that “the president has been doing a lot of waving and getting a lot of waving and smiles.”

He continued: “I think he’s gotten a real sense of the warmth of the Vietnamese people and their willingness to put a very difficult period for both the United States and Vietnam behind them.”

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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