Just an update to remind you that Bush is still marginalized by controversy and isolation of his own making:
Quote:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/3172247
May 7, 2005, 10:20PM
BUSH NOTEBOOK
Latvians not sold on Bush
By JULIE MASON
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
.....................But with freedom comes dissent. The Latvians may be slightly more pro-American than the Russians these days, but the U.S. president received a notably mixed reception from the people.
A full-page ad in one local newspaper showed two proud parents cooing over their new baby.
"Isn't little Georgie cute?" said one. Responded the other, "He would never kill anyone for oil."
There were billboards across the city with oversized green peace signs asking "George" to "Imagine." And fresh stickers plastered on utility poles near the stops on Bush's visits dubbed the American president a "terrorist.".............
...............Head to countryside
Local residents had been urged to head for the countryside during the Bush visit, and apparently many of them heeded.
In a full day of events in the Latvian capital, the president's fortified motorcade raced through empty streets.
Fencing and barricades created an unwelcoming security perimeter around the president's stops. Every few feet along the motorcade route, a Latvian police officer maintained an expressionless guard.
Events staged for Bush with state pomp and ceremony were by design attended by virtually no ordinary citizens.
Overcast skies, empty streets and the absence of life gave the president's day a strange, stark atmosphere.
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