The European education of George W.

They booed him, but the Europeans know they have to live with Bush. And though his speeches hint that travel might yet give him the vision thing, Russia is a different story.

By Steve Kettmann

Jun 16, 2001 | However this stormy five-day visit to Europe goes down as a chapter in the second Bush's presidency, at least the president knows the map of Europe as he never did before.

If that sounds merely flippant, it shouldn't. Neither Bush nor his advisors have made much secret of the fact that this is a president who had a lot to learn about the world coming into this job. He's had a memorable education in recent days, even if his caution-to-the-wind cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the last day of the trip reinforced all the most extreme views of the man's never-never grasp on reality.

The smiles often looked forced in Brussels and Gvteborg earlier this week as heads of state scrunched together for the cameras during Bush's first trip to Europe. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice often sat rigidly behind Bush as he spoke, her gaze as fixed, her jaw as set and her imagination seemingly as filled with dark possibilities as any Secret Service agent ready to dash in front of a coming bullet. But as much as newspaper accounts are playing up the rift between Europe and the United States, in fact, this trip had more to do with easing that rift than widening it.

The whole topic of Bush and Europe has turned into a kind of funhouse mirror on acid in the U.S. media. Media types paraphrase other media types citing White House officials paraphrasing media types. It's business as usual, Beltway style, but does not have much to do with how Bush is perceived over here on the Continent.

Sure, a lot of European leaders and intellectuals see the man as a pint-sized intellect with a limited worldview. But Europeans tend to be more adult about belittling each other than Americans, meaning they don't fully believe all the nonsense they are spewing but are determined to enjoy spewing it nonetheless. Any current of anti-Americanism sweeping Europe was always pressing against a very solid conviction that economically and militarily, to start with the basics, the U.S. is always going to be the 800-pound gorilla. The Europeans know, in other words, that whether Bush is a lightweight or not, they are going to have to deal with him for at least a few more years.

And that may not be entirely bad -- assuming Bush is able to take advantage of this trip to expand his awareness of European political sensibilities. Bush has shown that his views on major issues can evolve rapidly as he learns more about them, which could eventually be a factor in crucial strategic initiatives like his missile defense plan. Europe's reaction to that endeavor could be summed up by a headline Friday in Germany's mass-circulation Bild newspaper, above the fold, which pictured Bush next to a bad-TV-movie extraterrestrial, and asked "Is NATO afraid of UFOs?"

Taking the podium Friday afternoon in Warsaw to offer his first major speech of the trip, Bush had the look of a kid who has finally finished those icky green beans Mom forced him to eat and can now start in on the peach cobbler. He seems to like giving speeches, and some people think he's good at it. Bush offered support for the inexorable expansion of NATO and got in quite a few memorable lines.

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