IN GERMANY, BUSH PLAYS BUBBLE BOY

progressreport.org
2/24/2005

ADMINISTRATION -- IN GERMANY, BUSH PLAYS BUBBLE BOY: The White House
brought its sealed, dissent-free road show
(http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=258) to Germany this week,
scrapping an open "town-hall"-style event with average Germans for a meeting
featuring " carefully screened 'young leaders,'
(http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/24/international/europe/24germany.html?)
" the New York Times reports. The town-hall gathering was expected to
be the "main highlight" of the president's trip -- that is, until the
German government said it was " unwilling to permit a scripted event with
questions approved in advance
(http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,druck-343281,00.html)
" (like the one Secretary Rice held recently in France
(http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=202) ). Germans eager to see a
U.S. president weren't always required to undergo ideological vetting; in
1989, the first President Bush addressed an "enthusiastic audience" of
3,500 Germans during his visit. This time around, President Bush was
"entirely sealed off from Germans," who protested his events and
overwhelmingly oppose (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,148318,00.html)
his foreign policy goals.