I’m utterly suspicious… Since when does an AP writer have anything good to say about President Bush? Remember the name… Tom Raum…AP writer… Quick, someone do a background check… Could this just be an alias for Jeff Gannon? Is this just Another Rovian Conspiracy?…How do they think they can get away with this?
In the rarified club of world leaders, President Bush has taken his share of lumps. Critics have railed against his handling of Iraq, his perceived disdain for the United Nations and what they say is a swaggering approach to foreign policy.
But Bush probably would not want to trade places with any other head of state.
Nearly all his fellow leaders of the world’s big industrial democracies have stumbled. It has left them vulnerable at home and weakener on the world stage.
The president, through it all, is riding what he sees as a strong re-election mandate to trumpet his goal of spreading democracy.
That helps explains why Bush, despite a slip in his approval rating among Americans, may find himself holding the stronger hand when he travels in early July to Scotland for the annual summit of the leaders of the eight major industrialized democracies.
“His counterparts all face ill political winds that make their domestic positions rather precarious,” said Charles Kupchan, director of European studies with the Council on Foreign Relations, a private research group. “I do think it puts Bush in an advantageous position.”
Well, they slip in that one line about a bogus poll. I guess you gotta take what you can.
Update: Mongo has more on how “Bush handles the press, rather than having the press handle him”, here.
