Chicken Hawks and Lame Ducks

If you’d been part of the president’s motorcade as we’ve shuttled back and forth...the president has been doing a lot of waving and getting a lot of waving and smiles.

I think he’s gotten a real sense of the warmth of the Vietnamese people and their willingness to put a very difficult period for both the United States and Vietnam behind them.

Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, bragging to the New York Times whilst conceding he had not had any direct contact with ordinary Vietnamese on his whirlwind visit for this weekend's big summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in Hanoi.

The problem with living in a bubble is that you miss the most basic of signs. Grimaces are mistaken for smiles and birdie-flipping is mistaken for waving.

Given the President's penchant for traveling (he had only been on one trip outside the United States before becoming President) the only thing he really knows about Vietnam aside from the increasingly similar parallels to his war in Iraq is how to avoid it. And his speeding motorcade and whopping 15 minute visit to the Joint P.O.W./M.I.A. Accounting Command couldn't better reflect it.

On August 29, 2006 the local Hanoi city paper, Labor, reported that two ducks were found to be infected with the bird flu virus. While there hasn't been a new major outbreak, Vietnam is appropriately weary.

So it's unlikely that the visiting lame duck will be eating any on this trip, as he clucks around the conference, fastidiously avoiding contact with South Korea's Roh Moo Hyun, who, to the anger of the Bushies appears to have taken a softer line on North Korea, and who in turn holds the Bushies accountable for their Northern neighbors going nuclear.

Back at home, the President's sinking popularity forced him to bring back Daddy's friends to help him get out of his Iraqi quagmire. The over-arching message of the recent elections, despite already going unheeded by the administration, showed the world where America really stood on the Iraq war. And unlike this President, global leaders read the news and understand public moods.

Against this backdrop, Bush's presence at APEC will be tinged with pity as global leaders posture against a sitting lame duck.

It’s a pity Daddy couldn’t help him get out of Vietnam once again.