Public diplomacy a la President Bush (41)

President George H.W. Bush spoke yesterday in Abu Dhabi, as reported here by the AP. It’s an interesting story. President Bush did a somewhat better job under difficult circumstances than we’ve seen from Edward R. Murrow Award-winner Alberto Fernandez:

“We do not respect your son. We do not respect what he’s doing all over the world,” a woman in the audience bluntly told Bush after his speech.
Bush, 82, appeared stunned as others in the audience whooped and whistled in approval.
A college student told Bush his belief that U.S. wars were aimed at opening markets for American companies and said globalization was contrived for America’s benefit at the expense of the rest of the world. Bush was having none of it.
“I think that’s weird and it’s nuts,” Bush said. “To suggest that everything we do is because we’re hungry for money, I think that’s crazy. I think you need to go back to school.”

He wasn’t done yet:

Bush also told the audience its derisive hoots were mild compared to the reaction he got in Germany in the 1980s, after persuading the country to deploy U.S. nuclear missiles.
He told the audience

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