Saturday, November 18, 2006

Popular at 60mph

A segment from a press briefing today in Hanoi by US National Security Adviser Steven Hadley --

Q And one question on Vietnam. As some of us who were here on the previous trip the President took to Vietnam, when President Clinton came, I guess was at the very end of his presidency -- have been struck a little bit by the difference in tone. It was a different time, of course. But he was out much more in public with the Vietnamese. I know the President went today to a POW/MIA center. I think President Clinton went out to one of the sites where they were recovering -- and so forth, and it was something that whole villages turned out for. I was wondering whether you are concerned at all that the Vietnamese people are not seeing President Bush in their midst quite as much as they might like?

MR. HADLEY: Well, if you'd been part of the President's motorcade as we've shuttled back and forth over the course of the day --

Q I have been in some, yes.

MR. HADLEY: Well, as you can tell, we're in the midst of the Vietnamese people all the time. It's been -- one of the things I think the President has enjoyed is the people hanging out of windows and going up and down the streets. You know, one of the things that's nice about this is the streets have not been cleared, but there are folks coming and going. And the President has been doing a lot of waving and getting a lot of waving and smiles.

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