Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Bush, Merkel form friendship

GERMAN CHANCELLOR NEW U.S. ALLY IN EUROPE

By William Douglas
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted on Thu, Jul. 13, 2006

ROSTOCK, Germany - The huge headline in Wednesday's edition of the German national newspaper Bild blared the question that inquiring minds in Germany wanted to know: ``What Does Bush Find So Fascinating About His Girlfriend Angela?''

President Bush, who arrived Wednesday evening in this Baltic Sea coastal region of what once was communist East Germany, has formed a fast friendship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that has made them the new odd couple of international politics.

He's the architect of the pre-emptive-strike war on Iraq and defender of the U.S.-operated prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. She leads West Europe's biggest nation, one that staunchly opposes the war, and she emphatically wants the Guantánamo prison closed.

But those big differences don't seem to be a problem between the two leaders personally.

``There's a personal chemistry that works for them,'' said Helga Welsh, an associate political science professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in U.S.-Europe relations. ``Merkel can bring up unpopular topics like Guantánamo Bay and [Bush will] not get mad.''

While other European leaders such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac are in the twilight of their political careers, Merkel is on the rise. She has forged a leading role in Europe's efforts to prevent Iran from resuming its nuclear program. Next year, she will head the G-8 -- the leaders of eight major industrialized democracies -- while holding the rotating EU presidency for six months.

Merkel has been in office only eight months, but she's becoming the White House's go-to ally in Europe, experts in trans-Atlantic relations say. She's already made the frosty relationship that Bush had with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder a distant memory.

``Tony Blair's position is waning by the day, by the hour,'' said Jackson Janes, executive director of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington. ``Who can Bush look to for help in his remaining time in office? There's nobody in a better position than Angela Merkel.''

Merkel is Germany's first female chancellor and the first East German to lead the country since the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall led to the reunification of East and West Germany.

She was born in Hamburg in 1954. Her family moved to a town about 50 miles north of Berlin in the communist German Democratic Republic when her father, a Lutheran minister, got a church there.

``I find the chancellor to be a fascinating person who brings a unique perspective,'' Bush said during a White House news conference with Merkel in May. ``A lot of us who grew up in the West take our liberties for granted.''

Bush will depart Friday for St. Petersburg, Russia, where he'll spend the day with President Vladimir Putin before the weekend G-8 summit begins.

Copyright 2006 San Jose Mercury News. (emphasis added) (. . .)

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/15027749.htm

[F6 comment -- I think the writer is being extraordinarily charitable to dubya in portraying this embarrassing attempt by dubya to work his bullshit on a woman far more intelligent and accomplished than he who'd doubtless sooner be his strict disciplinarian potty-training nurse and babysitter than she would be his pet -- looks to me like dubya is just doing his best (which is pretty piss-poor at this point, what with his being the world's absolute top most despised jackass laughingstock and all) to give dear Angela all the 'aw shucks' shit-eating-grin charm he can -- which of course he's doing precisely because he's been told to try anything and everything he can (and because that's all he's got any more) to try to bring dear Angela under his arm -- as he has been told to do precisely because he and his partners in crime do so desperately need anything they can get from dear Angela at his point, what with old flamer Blair going down in flames and such as that -- certainly from all public appearances, per (the items linked in) the post to which this post is a reply and preceding, it sure doesn't look to me like he's getting any, just pissing Angela off and making even more of a buffoon of himself than usual -- and on the substantive political level which is the point of the exercise to begin with, I haven't seen any particular indication that Angela's been 'open' to 'accomodating' dubya in terms of in any significant way altering her views or her country's policies on issues such as Iraq and Gitmo, or for that matter currently regarding responding (or not) to what's happening in the Middle East]