The boy in the plastic bubble goes to Vietnam

[Sapphire Blue]

Unlike Clinton, Bush Sees Hanoi in Bit of a Hurry
By DAVID E. SANGER and HELENE COOPER
Published: November 19, 2006


In 2000, tens of thousands of Hanoi’s residents poured into the streets to witness the visit of the first American head of state since the end of the Vietnam War. Mr. Clinton toured the thousand-year-old Temple of Literature, grabbed lunch at a noodle shop, argued with Communist Party leaders about American imperialism and sifted the earth for the remains of a missing airman.

On Saturday, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, conceded that the president had not come into direct contact with ordinary Vietnamese, but said that they connected anyway.

“If you’d been part of the president’s motorcade as we’ve shuttled back and forth,” he said, reporters would have seen that “the president has been doing a lot of waving and getting a lot of waving and smiles.”

(snip)

Here in Vietnam, what has been missing, at least so far, are the kinds of emotional moments of reconciliation that marked Mr. Clinton’s visit. Mr. Clinton took the two sons of the missing airman, Lt. Col Lawrence G. Evert, to a rice paddy in Tien Chau, a tiny town 17 miles northeast of Hanoi. There, they searched for remnants of the colonel’s F-150D Thunderchief, which crashed during a bombing run in 1967. Scores of nearby villagers joined in the effort, and the soil gave up the airman’s bones.

There will be none of that for Mr. Bush, but he plans to highlight the new Vietnam on Sunday and Monday at its stock exchange in Ho Chi Minh City. Then he moves on to Indonesia for a few hours to meet “civic leaders,” something he did three years ago in a stopover in Bali.

Continued @ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/world/asia/19vietnam.html?hp&ex=1163912400&en=ac28a7081c62faa6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[patrice]

1. Lame.

[Bluebear]

2. 'the president has been doing a lot of waving'

That's what he considers "connecting" with people.

[caraher]

3. It's a shame there wasn't any brush to clear! nt