Hu Go, Prez!

Nothing like a bit of diplomacy.

Obama models adult emotional intelligence.

Last thing I checked, shaking hands isn’t a bad thing.

Love the “slinking past” shot, BTW. What a puss.

I continue to wonder what WPE was thinking in that group shot. I suspect he took his place and expected the rest to form up around him. It is beyond awkward.
It is sad to realize that there are people in the US so young that they have never seen a POTUS behave like an adult.

The shot of Obama is definitely a good thing. The pictures of Bush are meaningless though. For all we know, picture 1 could have been taken immediately after they stopped talking and Bush is moving to take his seat. And picture 2? You’re making a big deal out of where he stood for the group photo?

“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”
There’s nothing like a hand shake and a smile to confirm the wisdom of – Sun-tzu (Chinese general~400 BC)
I don’t know what Sun-tzu had to say about gifts but today ..’Chavez walked over to Obama, who rose to his feet to greet him, and the Venezuelan president handed the new U.S. president a copy of “Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina” by Eduardo Galeano, a journalist from Uruguay’
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21395.html
In the foreword for the 1997 edition, Chilean novelist and close relative of former Chilean President Salvador Allende, Isabel Allende says that “after the military coup of 1973 I could not take much with me: some clothes, family pictures, a small bag of dirt from my garden, and two books: an old edition of the Odes by Pablo Neruda and the book with the yellow cover, Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Veins_of_Latin_America

Random comments:
I see little change when Obama is portrayed as conquering the tough crowd the diplomatic way. Whats the matter with the U.S.? They cannot define themselves without an adversary.
Why is the public and the media on the U.S. scared or offended by Chavez? The guy has a sense of humor. One day he was fighting the king of Spain next day he was joking about the incident.
This time he is offering Obama his friendship as long as the U.S. respects Venezuela’s sovereignty.
There are some notable differences how the media in the u.s. and the media from Mexico to Argentina narrate the Summit of the Americas.
On the U.S. media, Obama is going to negotiate the cuban embargo as if it was some kind of favor.
On the rest of the continent (and the world many U.N. resolutions). The embargo can only be resolved by the U.S. putting and end to it. But the U.S. is looking for some benefits (business as always) out of this.
Where is the change when it looks like we have not learned anything new from the Cold War.
The Berlin Wall is down, but ‘El Muro’ is up.
Cuba is not part of the Summit of the Americas. Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras and República Dominicana regard the declaration as “unacceptable” because of this.
Giving the benefit of the doubt to Obama it looks like the change he is willing to make is the change the U.S. public and the media is willing to accept. I suppose its hard to assimilate you are not the best country around. (9/11’s reality check).
So Afghanistan is going to end as bad as Irak did. The troops are still there because the U.S. don’t want to accept they lost both wars (Where is Osama?).
As you can see I am very skeptical when change is part of the official discourse.
One last thing: Chavez gave ‘Las venas abiertas de América’ to Obama. On the G20 Summit the Queen of England (London=CCTV) gave ‘1984′ to Calderon… WTF???
I’ll take Chavez suggestion and grab a copy of Galeano’s essay and read it. I suspect either the Queen haven’t read ‘1984′ or they are getting all the ideas from there to accomplish their Orwellian state.
Can you explain Hu Go, Prez? I don’t get that part.

The book’s sales began to skyrocket after this international exposure. Before Chávez gave a copy of the book to Obama, Open Veins of Latin America was listed as the 54,295th most popular book on Amazon.com. In less than a day, the book moved up to #14 on Amazon’s best selling list.

You Go, Barack!

You can skip the Amazon part if you know how to spanish. Here’s a copy of the book: http://americasemfronteiras.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/las_venas_abiertas_de_a.pdf . I’m sure there’s an english copy around go ask Google.

Oh, cool i get it.
By the way nice blog mein.

Thanks for the suggestion, I’ve read the book some time ago. Your Spanish pdf source will be welcomed by Spanish readers I’m sure.
Michael has a clever way with captions, but this is one of his more subtle ones I think.