Does world opinion matter?
Find a Conversation
| Tue, 12-02-2003 - 4:39pm |
Bush's PR Problem
By Fareed Zakaria
Tuesday, December 2, 2003; Page A27
President Bush's Thanksgiving trip to Iraq was a generous and bold-hearted gesture of support to American troops. What made it such a success, however, was that it managed to severely limit an otherwise unavoidable aspect of travel: contact with foreigners. When Bush has had to go beyond U.S. Army bases in recent weeks, the tours have not gone so well.
Traveling through East Asia last week, I noted how poorly most observers rated Bush's recent trip there. Even more striking, however, was the comparison repeatedly made between Bush's visit and that of Chinese President Hu Jintao -- with a thumping majority believing Hu had done better.
In Thailand at the meeting for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, "there was no question that Hu was the better appreciated one," a Thai official said to me. "He outshone Bush in most of the attendees' eyes." The trips ended with the two making back-to-back visits to Australia. Bush was greeted with demonstrations, his address to Parliament interrupted by hecklers. Hu, on the other hand, got a 20-minute standing ovation from Parliament. "It is Hu's visit rather than George W. Bush's that will provide a lingering sense of satisfaction and security about Australia's place in the region," wrote the Australian, a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch and not given to knee-jerk anti-Americanism.
What is going on here? How does the chief representative of the world's oldest constitutional democracy lose a popularity contest to the leader of a Leninist party?
Let's start with the atmospherics. Everywhere Bush travels, his security is handled with the usual American overkill: huge numbers of guards and aides, walled-off compounds, tightly scripted movements from one bubble to another. Hu, by contrast, had a modest security detail, traveled freely and mingled with other leaders and even the general public. (Tony Blair sometimes manages to travel abroad with a total of six people.)
Bush's trip to London two weeks ago is now being heralded as a great success. But here is how one of the president's most ardent supporters, his former speechwriter David Frum, saw it while in London himself. "Bush was sealed away from London for the entire visit. There was no drive down the Mall, no address to Parliament, no public events at all," Frum wrote in his Weblog on National Review Online. "The trip's planners reduced the risk of confrontations -- but only by broadcasting to the British public their tacit acknowledgement that the visit was unpopular and unwelcome. By eliminating from the president's schedule events with any touch of spontaneity or public contact, the trip planners made the president look as if he could not or would not engage with ordinary British people." In Great Britain, Frum concluded, "the United States has a problem, a big one -- and it was made worse, not better, by this recent visit."
But the deeper problem is not one of style but of substance. Bush's trips to Southeast Asia and Australia focused single-mindedly on the war on terror. Karim Raslan, a Malaysian writer, explained the local reaction: "Bush came to an economic group and talked obsessively about terror. He sees all of us through that one prism. Yes, we worry about terror, but frankly that's not the sum of our lives. We have many other problems. We're retooling our economies, we're wondering how to deal with the rise of China, we're trying to address health, social and environmental problems. Hu talked about all this; he talked about our agenda, not just his agenda."
There is a lack of empathy emanating from Washington. After the Bali bombings, which were Australia's Sept. 11, the administration did not bother to send a high-level envoy to a steadfast ally for condolences. Australians had to make do with a videotape of George Bush. Even last week, Bush could surely have arranged to meet in Baghdad with a few troops from allied countries who are also fighting and dying in Iraq.
What is most dismaying about this state of affairs is that for the past 50 years the United States has skillfully merged its own agenda with the agendas of others, creating a sense of shared interests and values. When Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy waged the Cold War, they also presented the world with a constructive agenda dealing with trade, poverty and health. They fought communism with one hand and offered hope with the other. We have fallen far from that model if the head of the Chinese Communist Party is seen as presenting the world with a more progressive agenda than the president of the world's leading democracy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27057-2003Dec1.html
The second covers the rift between the US and the EU over Iran.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27063-2003Dec1.html
This article sheds an a less victorious light on the Samarra Massacre
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=68502c5eae5b193f0d75af16d5b0ce6b

Pages
Where others may see decisive leadership, I see inability to compromise or make adjustments to accomodate others' ideas, needs and what is best for the country as a whole. Inflexibility is not a quality of a good leader, it is a quality of cowardice, small-mindedness and lack of skills to negotiate and reason logically. I believe many of the foreign leaders recognize this and want to be distanced from it as much as possible. I believe "My way or the highway" leadership is just plain dangerous for the U.S.
The incidents causing these feelings internationally are piling up and I think people here are FINALLY starting to wake up from their hazy, post 9/11, commercially-fueled patriotism to find a country becoming less and less what they believed it to be.
I believe this adminsitration is in over its head. Time will tell, and hopefully we will choose new leadership next year and the healing of our broken foreign relations, and hence world opinion about the U.S., will begin sooner rather than later.
RM
What some people find is a comforting level of "steely determination" others see as a dangerously pigheaded and one-sided view of the world. This man has NEVER ventured outside of his comfort zone.
What some see as a "down home good old Texan boy" Is really a fabricated image of a man who is in reality more like a spoiled frat boy with a silver spoon in his mouth. The only thing that rings true about that concocted media image is the fact that he is from Texas. That other "man of the people" stuff is pure spin.
Qite frankly, that action figure of him in his flight suit that is selling so briskly could easily have had a string on its back that when pulled could spout the sum total of his very small arsenal of subject matter.
Edited 12/2/2003 10:07:18 PM ET by suemox
I too hope we get out of the doldrums soon.
A cutout with a devoted following. I have this picture of outline of the US dominated by a bust of a smiling GWB; half of the smaller heads within the outline gaze upon him adoringly, the other half are glowering. Surrounding the outline are frowning heads. I find this picture disturbing.
Renee
And I believe it IS possible for the U.S. to make a stand against terrorism without having to use the words terror, terrorism and evil as many times in every sentence as possible in all public statements to maintain the culture of fear created by the administration to serve as a barrier to dissent and rational discourse on options (a plural which GWB does not seem to be familiar). There are other things that need to be addressed in this nation and the world. The focus on terror here has become disproportionate.
But, the blame it on Clinton argument is simple and consistent and diverts attention from the actual issue here of the damage GWB has done to our foregin relations as evidenced by the documented world opinion and commentary, so I can see your point.
RM
Fighting terrorism may not be at the top of your priority list right now, but for many Americans it is. The election next year will give tell us exactly how many.
Renee
Fighting terriorism is not an all or nothing thing, and it is not at the "top" of my priority list because I am a multi-tasker and believe that many things can and should have equal importance and attention when you are running a COUNTRY - it's not a one-thing-at-a-time kind of job, you see, and proportionate attention to important issues is the key.
I want what is best for the country and, by extension, myself. I believe most Americans feel that way, and yes, they will speak on election day.
RM
This disagreement about HOW Bush is going about this (not whether or not it should be done) is what is polarizing the American people right down the middle (along with world opinion).
It has become glaringly obvious that this president is not the man for the job as much as many Americans admire and are comforted by his "straight shootin'" approach (however, the way he got into the war in Iraq is ANYTHING but straight shooting).
I also find myself siding with that other half of the American population (who are no less American IMO) that disagree with Bush's one-sided tactics and black/white world view. Since there are also as many of them as there are Bush supporters I believe there is still hope that the USA will come out of this with their principals and reputation intact.
I agree. GW doesn't strike me as a man who can multi-task. In fact, I don't think he can hold two thoughts in his head at the same time.
Pages