Visiting the White House - a good time was had by all
From
Google/Associated Press:
Brazil leader takes regional clout to White House
His meet and greet with the U.S. president was bumped to Saturday, and when the White House announced his official visit, they misspelled his name.
But when Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva becomes the first Latin American leader to sit down with President Barack Obama this weekend, he brings undisputed clout.
Silva runs the world's fifth-most-populous nation and ninth-largest economy and has close ties with leaders across the political spectrum. He's been asked to lobby Obama for free trade on behalf of conservatives in Colombia and for dropping the U.S. embargo against communist Cuba. Even Hugo Chavez has asked Silva to carry an olive branch to the new administration.
"I'm going to ask that the U.S. take a different view of Latin America," Silva said before leaving for Washington. "We're a democratic, peaceful continent, and the U.S. has to look at the region in a productive, developmental way, and not just think about drug trafficking or organized crime."
In fact, it's what Silva won't bring that shows how the global financial crisis has changed the geopolitical order.
"He will not have his hat in his hand or an outstretched palm saying 'I need money,'" said David Fleischer, a University of Brasilia political scientist. "But he will 'have his heels on' � a Brazilian way of saying he is in the favorable position."
Chavez may be a total moron for thinking that socialism is a good form of government but he is politically astute enough to know that Lula is 'da Man when it comes to South American Politics.
The White House's changing the date of his reception and getting his name misspelled is just yet another of their low-level political gaffes.
The
Russian Button
Gordon Brown's
gifts.
I'm amazed that they have not been able to find better people to handle these kinds of things. Such simple errors and such bad places to make them...
Posted by DaveH at March 18, 2009 8:34 PM