British waiting for Bush with dread...(Scuse me, British officialdom!)...

[MinnFats]

...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/11/16/nbush16.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/11/16/ixnewstop.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=19734


snippet:


The White House is trying hard. But even the new "softer" Bush will have his work cut out to make a success of this week's formal state visit - the first to be made by a US President.

Overshadowed by the bloody aftermath to the Iraq war and the coalition's failure to find Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, the dream visit has turned into a transatlantic nightmare. A trip intended to celebrate the "special relationship" between Tony Blair and Mr Bush has become a frantic exercise in crisis management.

One very high-placed Labour figure said last week: "We are very apprehensive about it. This might re-ignite backbench hostility." Among senior American diplomats there is equal unease: "A while back," said one, "folks were comparing this to when Ronald Reagan visited the Queen and rode a horse alongside her. Now with the mess in Iraq, the comparison is with the Vietnam protests in the 1960s. It's kind of a change of tone."

(is this really the first state visit by a U.S. Prez? I thought Reagan had gone over to play with Thatcher....)

[Jacobin]

1. Dread? I think the majority are waiting with Glee to "welcome"

Herr Bush*



:-)

[pippin]

2. there's a chance now the idiot in chief may see

the protesters and get a taste of how well loved he is by the British people.

see:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=223114

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Yes Reagan was there with Thatcher,

that was in anotehr era and Rove was behind this, wanna bet?