Confidence in Iraq and Brazil's beautiful game
Sorry for the delay, I had a great post ready to go and suddenly my browser crashed. Technology! At any rate, we're going to be talking about Iraq. President Bush made a surprise visit there today as he called on to take more responsibility for building confidence in the country. What will build confidence in the new government?
Also, the World Cup is well underway, but why is that so many people focus on Brazil? It's not just their dominance. It's something more. Why do we love to love Brazil?
POTUS makes suprise visit to Iraq
POTUS? President of the United States, and of course, his wife is FLOTUS, as in First Lady of the United States.
POTUS is the shorthand the White House Press Corps uses when referring to the president. I spent almost seven years covering Washington and the US for the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú, and I still the flurry of press e-mails from there. One of those e-mails is from the White House Press Pool. Everyday a reporter writes snappy despatches, often colourful, about the president's day. It can be about what he has to eat, what he's wearing or just any manner of small little details. Only a small number of press travel with the President so these other news outlets use these pool reports to inform their coverage.
Today Yochi Dreazen with the Wall Street Journal provided the pool report as President Bush landed in Baghdad.
Air Force One landed at the sprawling Baghdad International Airport at 4:08 PM Tuesday afternoon. The plane landed at a semi-deserted airstrip a good distance away from the main terminal. We were hustled off the plane by its back doors and led across the pavement to a waiting convoy of Nighthawk passenger helicopters [Secret Service agents had given us camouflage flak jackets shortly before we landed]. We didn't see POTUS enter his helicopter. As we took off, we could see a long list of waiting vehicles that had driven to the airstrip to meet the plane, including several GMC Suburbans, Humvees, and a white and red ambulance.
The helicopter ride was uneventful and lasted about seven minutes. Everyone on the helicopters was in body armor except for the White House aides, who wore business suits but no armor. Bartlett had earlier said that POTUS would also not be wearing body armor, though we could not verify that for ourselves. When we landed in the Green Zone, we were hustled to a waiting line of Suburbans and other SUVs for the short drive to the Republican Palace, a 1950's-era building which is now part of the U.S. Embassy compound. We arrived there around 4:32 PM local time.
Of course, not everyone finds writing up the pool report a thrill. seemed quite bored.
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