In an article in today's NY times, Bush's trip to Europe is discussed.
Article
There are some diamonds in the rough, more on the flip.
"White House officials are hopeful that the theater of the trip - Mr. Bush is to give a major speech in the grand setting of the 19th-century Concert Noble... will overshadow the substantive differences and create a new tone. "Style can sometimes have a substance all its own," said Ivo H. Daalder, a foreign policy specialist at the Brookings Institution."
Indeed. Hope that works well for you, but I've got fifty on failure.
And then:
"September the 11th was an interesting phenomenon in terms of our relations," Mr. Bush said when he was asked what he had to offer to Europe beyond warm words. "For some in Europe, it was just a passing terrible moment. And for us, it was a change of - it caused us to change our foreign policy." Those differences, he said, "at times, frankly, caused us to talk past each other."
Lets look at the reality, the Europeans supported our efforts to attack Afghanistan (read involved in 9/11), but decided not to get involved in our war with Iraq (read not involved in 9/11). So Bush again conflates Iraq with 9/11, you see for him the Europeans who helped us fight in Afghanistan but then refused to help in Iraq, is indicative of their passing interests in the terrible moment. No. They don't having a passing interest in the "War on Terror" they simply and correctly recognized Iraq as a diversion which wasn't part of the "WoT", and in light of this FACT they refused to help, see it's so simple. I'm not even going to comment on the "talk past each other" remark.
And then there is this:
"And I recognize that, and I want to make sure the Europeans understand I know that, and that as we move beyond the differences of the past, that we can work together to achieve big objectives."
Some might consider preventing Iran from getting nukes a "big objective". But not Bush apparently. You see the Europeans are pleading with the US to take part in Diplomatic discussions between Europe and Iran, but we refuse. So much for working together to achieve big objectives, most agree that these talks between Iran and Europe are destined to fail unless the US participates. So, if we work together we could achive this big objective, interesting.
And I saved more blatant hypocrisy for last:
"In Slovakia, Mr. Bush will meet with Mr. Putin and raise what he has promised would be questions about Mr. Putin's recent crackdown on dissent. But Mr. Bush indicated that he would do so in private, and gently."
So it seems that all this talk about "freedom" rings hollow, imagine that. You see we only care about "freedom" for people that we have something to gain from supporting, in those cases we will spend 300 billion to help them vote. Never mind that this wasn't the reason for going to war, which is a long forgotten point. But for those people in the Sudan, and Russia or any where else in the world that aren't free we couldn't careless; for them they get "gentle questions" if they are lucky.
Europe we have him for almost 365 days a year I hope you can stomach him for a few days.