SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: German politicians from both the ruling coalition and the opposition are taking aim at outgoing US President George W. Bush ahead of his week-long farewell trip to Europe. The Iraq war, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib have damaged America's reputation, they say.
Visits by US presidents to Germany are usually surrounded by an air of history. But the program for George W. Bush's visit on Tuesday and Wednesday reads as if he's already left office. There won't be any grand speeches or symbolic gestures at historic sites.
Instead he's being put up in an official residence in Brandenburg, about 70 kilometers north of the German capital. It's a clear sign that Bush is the lame duck of US politics in the remaining months of his deeply controversial eight-year presidency.
By inviting Bush to Schloss Meseberg palace, the official guest house of the German government, Merkel is officially returning the US president's invitation to his ranch in Crawford, Texas (more...) last November. It's a friendly gesture, but not an especially personal one. "She succeeds in playing this game between closeness and distance," Alexander Skiba, expert for trans-Atlantic relations at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), told the news agency AFP.
But senior politicians from Merkel's ruling grand coalition as well as from opposition parties have done away with diplomatic niceties, seizing on Bush's farewell visit to express their aversion to the president who remains vilified in Germany for launching the Iraq war. ’Yurp’ Says auf Wiedersehen to Dubya: ‘Bush Damaged America’s Image Around the World’ >>> June 9, 2008
BBC:
Bush, the Destroyer of the US Economy, Eyes the Economy on Trip to Europe: He talks about the need for a strong dollar; yet he has done everything in his power to weaken it. Funny that! >>> | June 9, 2008
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The Faltering George Bush spoke of the work to be done in Afghanistan, ahead of his trip to Europe >>>
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