Mrs. Bush Heads to Europe to Polish U.S. Image

[True_Blue]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. first lady Laura Bush will try to polish America's international image, battered by disputes over the war in Iraq, when she visits Europe on a five-day-trip beginning Sunday.

"There's a great benefit for our country if we can really let people around the world know what we are really like and what our values are really like," Mrs. Bush told reporters last week in discussing her third solo foreign trip as first lady.

Mrs. Bush was to leave Washington Sunday morning for Paris, and travel on to Moscow Tuesday.

In Paris, she is to represent the United States Monday in a ceremony marking the U.S. reentry to UNESCO, the United Nations' main cultural organization, from which Washington withdrew in 1984 citing mismanagement and anti-Western bias.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=3519110

[Bozita]

1. Tell her to fill her prescriptions over there and save big bucks.

Xanax is dirt cheap.

[donsu]

33. good one

nt

[expatriot]

2. I know Warsaw gave * some troops for Iraq, but must our image be Polish?

Or am I missing something here.

[emad]

61. Sincerely hope not:

The Polish word trup (pronounced like troop) means corpse.

As for Polish image, perhaps Pickles is on a Cardinal Ratzinger-sponsored grand tour, drumming up support for him and Marcinkus ahead of the Roberto Calvi murder trial?

[DEMActivist]

3. This bunch is just amazing

They keep trying the same failed strategy even if it doesn't work.

Mrs. Bush tried to play emissary once before, with Karen Hughes managing the PR, remember?

Didn't work then, won't work now. The world can't stand these jerks because of the failed strategies - they need to learn to live with it.

[eek]

70. karen hughes is with pickles again

""Mrs. Bush's entourage on her third solo trip abroad as first lady blends the personal and the official as well.

Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, chosen to sing the U.S. national anthem at the ceremonies, is a fellow native of Midland, Texas. Her mother attends Sunday school with Mrs. Bush's mother.

Also in the 17-member official delegation are some longtime Texas friends: Karen Hughes, a longtime key adviser to the president, and Adair Margo, an art dealer from El Paso who heads the White House committee on the arts and humanities.""

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3205744,00.html

[expatriot]

4. Mrs. Bush Heads to Europe to Polish Helmets for Troops.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. first lady Laura Bush will be strapping on some knee pads as she attempts to fet some guarantees for more international troops to Iraq in exchange for some mind-blowing cocksucking when she visits Europe on a five-day-trip beginning Sunday.

"There's a great benefit for our country if we can really let people around the world enjoy the same pleasures I give the President and to let people know that I am here to serve their darkest desires like I satisfy the President's and, actually, the entire White House staff's,," Mrs. Bush told reporters last week in discussing her third solo foreign trip as first lady.

Mrs. Bush was to leave Washington Sunday morning for Paris, and travel on to Moscow Tuesday.

[laconicsax]

21. Do you really think that if

W was getting head, he would have invaded Iraq?

Either way, we'll know how good she is after she gets back.

[PaDUer]

30. knee pads?

lol..where did we hear that before?lolol

[BrotherBuzz]

5. Hmmm. While georgie stays home and polishes...

His___?___

A. Car
B. Liquor bottle
C. Knob
D. All of the above

[InkAddict]

6. Compulsory Big Mac Attacks

at French ceremony lead to coupons for thousands of Happy Meals with a little tiny plastic Selected figure with his arm stuck out in THAT certain position raining down on the crowds from the jet overhead. That's "Over $87 billion sold(out)" with the first bite. Hehehe, mon ami, there's no more bites, mai oui, but lots of champaign, oil, and freedom!

[Paschall]

17. OT - Uh, you might want to be careful, InkAddict...

...about using the English word "bite" in a sentence with French.

(Bite (pronounced "beet") is French slang for "the male organ," si vous voyez ce que je veux dire.) ;-)

[InkAddict]

51. Ooh la la! n/t

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

74. Ouch

Bite the bite? *Crosses legs*

[Paschall]

7. Lemme guess

Before trying to "polish America's image," Pickles is going to spend Monday morning in Paris shopping to replace her leisure wear/bar wear.

Sheesh. For the days of Jackie O. She could speak 6 languages; Laura can barely manage English: "We want to have a friendship with France and I know Americans want to have a friendship with France," she said.

What a tool! Bernadette Chirac is certainly no fashion plate, but she could kill Pickles with a glance. (That's Bernadette Chodron de Courcel, descendant of the Baron de Courcel, of the Second Regime aristocracy named by Napoleon, for you history buffs.)

[grasswire]

9. some polish, Pickles

[Bozita]

11. Lovely tablecloth. Any pix of the table?

[femmecahors]

23. Her Honey calls her "The Blob." n/t

...

[ignatius]

52. Good God, look at her eyes. Do they have her on thorazine now?

She must be on some major psychotropic meds. Just lie down sweetie, everything will be fine in the morning.

[roguevalley]

56. I recognize the gibbons on the right but who are the

lemurs on the left?

[muriel_volestrangler]

63. King Abdullah of Jordan and his wife, I presume (n/t)

[lanlady]

62. OMG, she's wearing a bed throw--

[smirkymonkey]

65. You have to admit though,

..she's looking much more alert and "with it" in that photo. :)

[snooper2]

73. That is one scary ass picture.....

eom... :scared:

[izzie]

26. Oh she speaks Bush.......

Bush speak drives me nuts. He does not say anything unless it is a speech some one wrote for him. You know it is raining because water is falling. What is he talking about half the time???????

[philosophie_en_rose]

32. Get ready for the Rainbow Tour.

Laura Bush is not a fashion plate, a diplomat, or a figure of international charm. She is not Princess Diana or even Evita Peron. I'm sure that she'll fail.

However, who wants to bet five dollars that her picture is flashed all over FoxNews with adoring children swarming around her. Like a certain fighter pilot...

[JCMach1]

60. Pickles does not wear couture...

Unless walmart counts...

ACK!!!

The worst fashion sense since Bess Truman. In defence of Bess, she never wanted to be First Lady in the first place.

[moondust]

8. Pickles in Paris.

"There's a great benefit for our country if we can really let people around the world know what we are really like and what our values are really like," Mrs. Bush told reporters last week...

Don't expect a windfall, Pickles. They already know what your kind is really like. To get on their good side just order some Freedom Fries.

[Lorien]

14. Really Pickles

both you and your husband really could use a really good Thesaurus... really!

[Paschall]

15. Thesaurus? They don't need no thesaurus.

They've already got a rental horse on the pig farm. Besides, in Texas, thesauruses are extinct.

[shirlden]

69. ROFLMAO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks Paschall. Du is always good for a morning laugh.



:yourock:

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

36. Yo, Pickles! Actions speak louder than words!

Fuggin' used car salesmen running the country.

[roguevalley]

57. with some pie higher on the side.

*

[InkAddict]

10. and buy haute couture

inauguration gown well ahead of the price mark-ups. Get those silkworms and sweat shop lacemakers busy!

edit for link on history of lacemaking:

http://www.theotherside.co.uk/tm-heritage/background/lace.htm

[Bozita]

12. The dollar's falling. French couture will never again be this cheap.

Laura's shopping tip:

Spray your credit cards with silicone. The magnetic strip will last longer.

[izzie]

28. Well Barbara got pearls from Saudie. She keeps tells us they are dimestore

I hardly think so if they were from the King of SA

[ClintonTyree]

13. The Stepford Wife....................

will go to Europe and blankly stare at everybody. That'll garner support for sure. Europeans will then be convinced that we're a nation of mindless, drugged morons.

[thebigidea]

18. she's a charmer

[pippin]

39. She ain't no Jaqueline Kennedy

Pickles won't wow the Parisians the way Jaqui did for sure.

"In 1961, she (Jaqueline Kennedy] returned to Paris as first lady and won the hearts of Parisiennes, including French President Charles de Gaulle. It was on this trip that President Kennedy opened a news conference by remarking that he felt the need to introduce himself as "the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris."



http://www.jfklibrary.org/newsletter_winter2003_10.html
can you imagine what de Gaulle would do with Pickles?

[jamesinca]

16. I think she had a slip with this one

"We want to have a friendship with France and I know Americans want to have a friendship with France," she said.

Does this mean the Bush family is not American? Does this mean she is a space alien as I have suspected? Or is she admitting that they are so out of touch with America that they can not consider themselves Americans?

[Paschall]

19. Has anyone ever seen Pickles...

...bend her pinky finger?

[yella_dawg]

20. "Pickles" was the pet name my alcoholic ex-mother-in-law

had for my sociopathic ex-wife. Given that my brief description of those two is at worst both kind and generous, and given my natural reaction to our drug-burned First Zombie, the whole "Pickles" thing is just about more than I can take.

[robbedvoter]

22. How pathetic! Will freepers hurl bottles of French wine at Pickles now?

Is anyone in France/world unaware that the so called backlash was started by bushco/RNC/their media?
Does it mean that next time Tom Brokaw goes on Air Force 1 he won't have Freedom Toast?

[dbt]

24. A Wasted Effort

The rest of the world already knows what we are like.

:evilgrin:
dbt

[slater71]

25. How? By reading to school Kids.

Or maybe by begging forgiveness for her dumb ass of a husband.

[are_we_united_yet]

27. Polish the US Image?

After what this administration has done? That must be one large Chamois cloth.

[underpants]

29. "What we are really like"? And we send THEM???

I just love the headline that includes the words Mrs.Bush, polish, and heads. :bounce:

[Gin]

31. She us being used like a weather baloon.....for her bafoon husband...

Hope she gets booed. and mooned...show your bums for mrs bush.

[sendero]

34. someone should tell pickles...

... that in many parts of the world, actions speak louder than words and you cannot say one thing and do another and have it go unnoticed.

She will have about as much success as her clueless hubby did at the UN.

[tlcandie]

35. She's just going to get polished at all the elite spas ...

spend some money, help the economy, smile and giggle.... :puke: She's got to get cleansed from all the filth at the WHorehouse.

[Snellius]

37. Is that "Polish" as in "relating to Poland or to Poles"?

Or as in "to embellish with a false impression"?

[MyClaud]

38. How can she

go representing the Bush values when we all know they only value money. This is horrible...a "Pickle" representing her values as mine to the rest of the world!

I wish she would just stay home and tend to her hubby's "needs."

:freak:

[newyawker99]

48. Hi MyClaud!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[annonymous]

40. She doesn't have a good image.

She has truly terrible taste in clothes and she always looks drugged. Please Laura stay home, you make Americans look bad.

[Eloriel]

41. Too funny

"There's a great benefit for our country if we can really let people around the world know what we are really like and what our values are really like," Mrs. Bush told reporters last week in discussing her third solo foreign trip as first lady.


Yeah, who cares what THEY like, or what their values are?

She's such a zero.

Eloriel

[gulliver]

42. Junior wrecked the U.S. image. It needs more than polish.

The only way to improve the U.S. image now is to oust Bush in 2004.

[JohnyCanuck]

43. Let's see now. Is this how it is supposed to work?

The Europeans are pissed that the US administration is acting as a front for a PNAC inspired neo-con agenda to impose American hegemony over the rest of the world and to ensure that the US will in future call all the shots, and impose the American system of corporate governance and crony, big-business, insider dealing capitalism on the world whether the world wants it or not.

They are worried that the US has a brain defficient idiot and PNAC puppet as the Commander in Chief. A CinC who has already blundered in a big way by starting and illegal war which killed thousands of Iraqi civilians and young conscript soldiers and several hundred US servicemen and has now led to the US becoming stuck in an Iraqi tar pit. A tar pit into which Bush would like to drag other countries as a means to help cover his own ineptidude and to escape the consequences that will likely be extracted at the polls in 2004.

Now Pickles makes her grand entrance on the scene and the French cheese eaters, Belgian chocolate makers and German leiderhosen wearers are supposed to say, "Mr. Bush has such a nice wife. Why all those concerns we had about the legitimacy and the goals of the Bush administation were clearly illegitimate and unfounded."

Somehow, I don't think this is going to work. I have a feeling it will take way more than an appearance by a pleasant looking presidential wife who reads stories to school kids and visits kindergartens and old-folks homes to change their attitudes towards the Bush gang of corporate robber barons.

[Missy Vixen]

44. Did I miss something?

>Mrs. Bush was to leave Washington Sunday morning for Paris, and travel on to Moscow Tuesday.<

I'm confused.

I thought that all things French were off-limits. Does this mean we're all encouraged to buy products from France again?

I can only hope, with everything inside myself, that someone in Paris will ask Pickles point-blank and on camera why the US government has suddenly decided it's okay to deal with the French again. After all, weren't they painted as traitorous untouchables because they would not join the "coalition of the willing"? Weren't we all being shamed into not buying French products, not consuming French food and wine, and the odious "Freedom Fries"?

Laura Bush, most Americans loved Jacqueline Kennedy, and you are no Jacqueline Kennedy.

Julie

[Barrett808]

45. Jeb's visit went over so well before the invasion

The Bush family saga is starting to look like high farce.

[Aidoneus]

46. that would require substance, not spit-shine..

just a bit of humble advice..

[grasswire]

47. I wonder...

...if the girls are going with her and if this happens to coincide with a big fashion event.

[BonjourUSA]

49. Who is Laura Bush ??

[PNAC_butter_jelly]

50. Lock up the liquor & medicine cabinets..

Pickles is on the loose

[candy331]

53. Desperation

is truly showing now. Hope she makes more of an impression than hubby did at UN last week.

[cap]

54. not a good impression...

Europeans admire culture and intelligence. Sitting and reading kiddie stories is going to look pathetic to them.

Jackie was a big hit with the French because she spoke French fluently and was a true patronness of the arts.

After the Hungry Caterpiller, what is there to Laura?

[roguevalley]

55. so they send the most lifeless, boring person we've got to

'charm' the foreigners? I swear. He wants
WWIII doesn't he.

[roguevalley]

58. lordy. Two days, barely, in France and then on to Russia?

What the hell? Even Joan of Arc didn't conquer France in two days.

[Dulcinea]

59. Is this because Boy George can't or won't go?

He'd be laughed out of Paris. Plus, he could never admit he screwed up royally. That's Laura's job.

[MaineDem]

64. Ack, CNN said...

The bimbo on CNN before 7AM this morning was talking with the reporter in Europe and actually compared this trip to Jackie's trip. She said remember how Jackie charmed DeGaulle.

The reporter on site said that there basically was no comparison because Jackie spoke several languages and had class. (she didn't actually say the "had class" part but it was certainly implied.)

[smirkymonkey]

66. "What our values are really like"?????

I think they have a pretty damn good idea of what "our values are really like." As, for Pickles as ambassador, I think they would have more success sending a lovely early american rocking chair.

What next??? Barbara and Jenna at the Hofbrauhaus??

[bvar22]

67. The European opinion of the bush* family:

[Neecy]

68. mon dieu!

Keep the kiddies inside in case they let Pickles behind the wheel of a car.

I think she's a great representative to send to France - let them see a homicidal Bush close-up and personal. I'm sure they'll be impressed.

[eek]

71. and just wtf is this babble supposed to mean?

``The goals of UNESCO are certainly goals and values and issues that I've worked on my whole life,'' Mrs. Bush said.

Huh? What goals? What values? Could you give us an example please?
Further proof that this crew is all can, no Pepsi.

And "worked on my whole life' hardy har har. tell us another one, honey!

[Individualist]

72. Frumpy goes to France

Many of us are reminded of when Jackie Kennedy went to Paris and won the hearts of the French with her intelligence, charm and beauty. Now Frumpy Pickles is there, and I'm certain the reaction of the French will be :puke:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

75. The real meaning

"There's a great benefit for our country if we can really let people around the world know what we are really like and what our values are really like,"

That's what DU and other places are for. This Brazilian's respect for the country that borders Canada and Mexico has increased hugely since joining this bunch.

Laura and her folk notwhitstanding.