Thread: Bush's woes ensure little will get done

Bush's woes ensure little will get done TheStar.com - Canada - Bush's woes ensure little will get done
August 21, 2007
James Travers

OTTAWA - For once, the elephant in the room is the elephant in the room. After twice winning presidential elections under the Republican pachyderm banner, George W. Bush is now such a pariah at home and abroad that just his presence changes this week's Montebello summit.

"Bush is viral," says a long-time insider who has seen two generations of Canadian and Mexican leaders interact privately with this Uncle of Sam. "Politically, no one can afford to get too close to him."

An infectious president creates two problems: One for the staggering process to advance shared North American interests, the other for a minority Prime Minister struggling for a majority.

Bush's unpopularity makes it virtually certain leaders will leave the nearby Montebello resort having accomplished little more than deepening conspiracy theories that the security and prosperity agenda is a cover for accelerated continental integration. Sure, a final communiqué, both written and leaked before the meeting began, boasts new commitments to open borders, but progress on most of the 300-item, two-year-old to-do list is too small to measure.

Canadians can take special comfort that nearly $2 billion a day in sustaining two-way trade with the U.S. may be insulated from another 9/11. And while evolving pandemic controls should reassure citizens of all three countries, there just isn't enough political will to fast-forward changes needed to ensure a reasonably safe North America is globally competitive.

Intriguingly seen by both the Canadian left and U.S. right as threats to sovereignty, reforms to better flex the muscles of three countries with a bigger combined economy than the European Union will have to wait at least until the crossbreed of elephant and lame-duck limps into history. At least that will provide time to rethink a widely misunderstood process that is now routinely pricked by unnecessary secrecy and an unseemly skew to corporate elites.

Chairing a meeting that's an elaborate and costly photo opportunity is only one worry for Stephen Harper. Different as Canada is from the U.S. and Conservatives are in detail from Republicans, there are enough similarities for Harper to see himself in Bush.

Along with leading parties defined by low taxes, picket-fence values and politicized patriotism, the Prime Minister and president share constraints. Branded by unpopular wars and facing skeptical electorates increasingly fretting about social inequities, they can't rely on neo-conservative movements flagging after a long U.S. run and still looking for that burst of energy needed here to make Conservatives Canada's default party.

Political realities encourage behaviour modification. Harper no longer sounds like Bush, the last Conservative budget could have been written by Liberals in pre-election mode and, in hopes of a parliamentary majority, the Prime Minister is staying safely away from the moral majority.

He's doing little more publicly with Bush than protocol imposes. One-on-one exposure was minimal yesterday, briefings made a point of the differences between the two leaders, and Harper is spending more, um, quality time with the Mexican president.

There are negative international consequences for a superpower diminished by a U.S. leader who in making the Middle East worse, made a mess of his presidency. But in the here and now of the Montebello summit, fears are more immediate and personal.

No one with a political future wants to be caught cleaning up after the passing elephant.
James Travers' national affairs column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

bush boy has political coodies...

Very good read, hopefully it's true.

I want to know what hes given to mexico now.How much more of our country can he give away?Bush is a traitor and should not be trusted to run a paper route.Every time he meets these people, the American people lose.I dont care what this article says,we need to be alert and keep up the fight.

Ya know if the truth was known I bet all these other countries leaders laugh when they see him coming. He's so stupid I think they take advantage of him and he doesn't know it. bush boy is probably getting credit for making these deals that other countries have come up with to take advantage of nook-you-lar boy.