At the White House, the Liberian leader for whom President Bush dances

President Bush is meeting this morning in the Oval Office with a woman who has become one of his favorite foreign leaders, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia.

He gets along so well with Johnson-Sirleaf -- and respects her efforts to pull up her impoverished, politically-shredded country so much -- that he was uncharacteristically (and unsmirkingly) patient while the "Iron Lady" of Africa delivered a lengthy, effusive introduction to a speech he delivered Tuesday in downtown Washington on international development.

Among those cheering Bush was Irish rocker Bob Geldof, who with Bono has devoted huge amounts of time to wrestling with global poverty issues and, with Bono, has struck up a curious friendship with Bush.

In his final years in office, the president, too, has put a special emphasis on tackling the continent's myriad health and hunger problems. The result: He has gained praise from quarters where he often finds only criticism.

And as Countdown to Crawford noted this summer, with Iraq still unsettled and Afghanistan increasingly dangerous, Africa could emerge as one of his foreign policy successes.

Bush visited with Johnson-Sirleaf last February in Monrovia. On that steamy day, he drove along a freshly paved downtown boulevard that days before had been impassable except very slowly and in the sturdiest of four-wheel drive vehicles.

The city turned out for Bush, whose visit was limited to daylight hours for security reasons. He rewarded guests at a presidential luncheon with encouragement for the democratic path on which Liberia has embarked -- and this impromptu dance performance.

-- James Gerstenzang

Photo: Eric Draper / The White House

President Bush tells the U.N.: You are needed 'more urgently than ever'

 

The setting was familiar--the rostrum backed by the massive green marble. So, too, the message.

President Bush was speaking to the U.N. General Assembly, giving his valedictory address. And in tenor and content, it could have been the introductory speech he delivered in a meeting delayed as New York, and the world, recovered from the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Delivering  a message of preemption, Bush told the U.N. today:

Instead of only passing resolutions decrying terrorist attacks after they occur, we must cooperate more closely to keep terrorist attacks from happening in the first place.

But, if one sentence in his address--delivered with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran looking on--summarized Bush's message after eight years of occasionally rocky relations with the world body, it was this:

The United Nations and other multilateral organizations are needed more urgently than ever.

Was this the same President Bush, then, who made it clear in his 2002 address that the United States was headed toward a showdown with Saddam Hussein. And that while Washington would appreciate U.N. support, the mission would go forward regardless?

The contrast...

Coming up at the White House: A visit from "The Lion King"

It's one of those rare sights at the White House: President Bush in black tie.

Look for it Monday evening, when he is the host at a state dinner for the president of Ghana, John Kufuor. His distaste for formal occasions notwithstanding, a state dinner is the least Bush could do for the African president.

When Bush visited Kufuor last February in Accra, his host told him that he would complete a major highway from the Accra airport into the capital city -- and it would be named after George W. Bush.

The entertainment on Monday evening after the dinner will be provided by the cast of, what else, "The Lion King."

For the rest of the president's upcoming public schedule provided by the White House, click on Read Full Story...

-- James Gerstenzang

Photo: Disney

Coming up at the White House and beyond...

If President Bush seems a little sleepy Monday night when he speaks to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., understand that he is not accustomed to delivering major addresses after his bedtime.

The president, who keeps a Franklinesque schedule (that means early-to-bed, early-to-rise) is scheduled to spend the Labor Day weekend in Washington, then board Marine One at the White House on Monday, to begin the trip to Minnesota. He is scheduled to speak at 9:40 p.m. CDT; Laura Bush is scheduled to speak before him.

But then, the night gets even longer--all part of the price of his getting out of town immediately after the speech and letting John McCain claim the party's presidential nomination three days later with nary a hint of the current president's presence.

The Bushes are flying back east as soon as their prime-time speeches end. They are heading directly to Camp David, Md., a place so private--behind multiple fences and guarded by the U.S. Marine Corps--that it is certain he will provide no unintended distraction from the Republican gathering.

And it's unlikely that he'll get to bed much before 3 a.m.

For the rest of the president's low-key schedule in the coming week, click on Read Full Story...

-- James Gerstenzang

Photo: Stefan Zaklin / EPA

President Bush and Dick Cheney: Closet liberals?

And now for something completely different: President Bush, yes, this President Bush--as a liberal.

The Canadian magazine Macleans is making that argument, under the shocking headline "The shockingly liberal legacy of George W. Bush."

The irony that it misses: Could it be that Vice President Dick Cheney is the force behind at least one element of the "liberalization?"

In a lengthy article that addresses the breadth of the Bush presidency and notes that the administration's legacy is more than just the war in Iraq, it says: "In some areas it is the result of hard-line conservative ideology — but in others it is surprisingly liberal."

Consider the seeming contradictions: The tax-cutting conservative who ...

Biden-Bush: foes on Iraq, friends on Africa

Joe Biden has had some harsh things to say about President Bush over the years.

The senator from Delaware -- now Barack Obama's running mate -- said that Bush squandered an opportunity to rally the world behind the US after 9/11. Biden was so dubious about prospects for success in Iraq that he suggested a decentralized central government in Baghdad with a confederation of strong Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni provinces.

Biden has also accused the Bush White House of being tone deaf on civil liberties, torture and intelligence. "This is an administration beyond redemption," he told voters in Iowa while campaigning for president last year. "I was there for Nixon. This guy's worse."

But on the president's plan to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases around the world -- Bush recently signed a five-year, $48-billion bill to triple previous funding -- Biden has been unstinting in his praise.

"The president's emergency action program for HIV/AIDS has saved more than a million lives," Biden said. "It may be the greatest legacy this president leaves."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Jim Watson  AFP/Getty Images

Will Africa be Bush's legacy?

Today President Bush signed an executive order expanding sanctions against "the illegitimate government" of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe. Saying that Mugabe has ignored international calls to stop its violent attacks on political opponents, Bush authorized up to $2.5 million in U.S. refugee funds to help fleeing Zimbabweans and pledged continued food and health assistance.

Which puts us in mind of this question: With the legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan in doubt, will Africa emerge as George W. Bush's chief foreign policy triumph?

U.S. aid to Africa has tripled under his watch. Trade has almost doubled. And his $30-billion initiative fight the global HIV/AIDS pandemic -- he signs this year's measure next Wednesday -- may stand as the largest international health initiative ever initiated by one nation to address a single disease.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Eric Draper / White House

Bush meeting on Zimbabwe finds little common ground

When last they met, President Bush and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete were all smiles. That was in February, in Dar es Salaam. Bush was touting the success of the White House initiative fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in the developing world -- and his plan to increase funding from the $18 billion spent up to then to $30 billion for the next five years.

They met again today in Toyako, Japan, on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit, the annual conference of the leading industrial nations. Kikwete, the leader of the African Union, was there for related meetings on Africa. But in Toyako in northern Japan, Bush was coming not with new money, but with a new complaint: He wanted to see a tougher stance against Zimbabwe, in the wake of a presidential election he has called a sham.

A sure sign that the meeting did not go as planned: Reporters had been told before the session that the two presidents were likely to respond to questions during a photo-op after the meeting. When the picture-taking came, the two men presented their statements, and departed. They ignored shouted questions.

Bush said the question of Zimbabwe "took a fair amount of time."

"It did, it did," agreed Kikwete. That appeared to be the extent of their agreement.

To be sure, neither cared for the power-grab that has kept Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in office.

But from there, it was clear that they found no agreement on what to do about it -- and Bush's push for U.N. sanctions did not produce the support he sought.

Kikwete, speaking in diplomatic code that suggested -- in some distance from the U.S. policy -- the African Union favored a power-sharing agreement for Zimbabwe, added:

We are saying no party can govern alone in Zimbabwe, and therefore the parties have to work together to come up to -- to come out, work together, in a government, and then look at the future of their country together.

Later, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino emphasized that Bush had found some support for sanctions, and it was "not a President Bush versus the world situation."

Dan Price, a deputy White House national security advisor, put it this way: "There were differences. Not all leaders are there yet, in respect of sanctions."

As Kikwete put it: "The only area that we may differ is on the way forward."

Which, of course, is the central question.

For the transcript of the Bush-Kikwete comments, click here.

For the transcript of Dana Perino and Dan Price, click here.

--James Gerstenzang

Photo credit: Jim Watson / AFP-Getty Images