For non Americans, United States is a difficult country to understand. Sometimes great, sometimes let´s say, not that great. For me today, witnessing President Clinton, a man who I greatly admire, lavishing praise on Laura Bush, the First Lady of a presidency I mostly disagree with, with was a real shock. I guess that in a way that is what´s great about America, that rivals can also collaborate on basic issues such as improving conditions in Africa. But as I heard the Opening Plenary in which Clinton did not have a single word of criticism towards his follower who many of us believe did a lot of harm to global relations I could not help to be quite uncomfortable with his speech and closeness to the Bush Administration.

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Zach Skyles Owens on September 21, 2006  · 

I watched today’s sessions from the CGI web site today and was also quite surprised to see this. Is it because Clinton is truly a master statesman and the work Laura Bush is doing is really all that wonderful so he could put politics aside?

During your interactions with the other leaders in the conference what percentage would you say support the Bush administration? If it’s a high percentage, which I doubt, then maybe it was a way to bring the two sides together to make progress on these issues. Maybe it’s the same reason that Juan Calcagno pointed out in his comment on you picture of Bono with the Clintons.

Either way, I’m glad to see you brought this up because I thought it was odd, too.

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Antoin O Lachtnain on September 21, 2006  · 

I can see why he doesn’t want to engage in an attack on his predecessor, it is a battle he would ultimately lose. I know if you were in his position Martin, you would do something different!

But reading the open remarks on the web with Rice, Blair and others it did seem like there was an elephant in the room that nobody was talking about. It is pretty ridiculous to talk about providing terrorism insurance for investors in Palestine whilst the Americans are involved in a situation close to civil war in nearby Iraq.

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Marcelo Levit on September 21, 2006  · 

Politics Martin, just that ….

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