Brown Meets Bush

Americans, don't be alarmed because that shabby looking Scotsman following your President about is actually with us. We sent Gordon over to you with the hope of being able to change the locks before he came back but we have all been too busy shaking our heads and tutting that he can't even arrange a trip to the States without landing slap bang in the middle of a papal visit. The dullard.
These trips take months to set up and I find it hard to believe that at some point someone didn't realise that a birthday celebrating Pope was going to be around at the same time as our Prime Minister and that is where my theory begins that far from being some sort of plank, Brown has actually managed to pull off a sly, but brilliantly clever, coup.
To a World leader, Bush is what kryptonite was to Superman. To actively be seen mixing with the man is enough to send your ratings into a fatal nosedive as Tony Blair, John Howard and José Aznar found out.
On his first visit to George's side last year, Gordon was generally praised in the UK media for his lack of gushing and refusal to return the platitudes Bush bestowed upon him. But that was then.
Brown couldn't be so cold and standoffish this time around and he knew it but he would be committing political suicide if he cosied up to one of the the most unpopular American Presidents to ever grace the White House, not only with his own party who dumped Blair for those same reasons but also with whoever finally takes over from Bush.
So he chose the one time that he can slip quietly in and slip back out again relatively unnoticed and while the focus is on the Pope rattling off apologies about paedophile priests and other churchly matters.
Nobody was really interested when Brown said that 'the world owed Bush a great deal of gratitude for helping to root out terrorism' or were paying that much attention when he stated that he stood 'shoulder to shoulder with the president in the battle against terrorism.'
Downing Street said that the Prime Minister's trip has been a great success and officials are laughing off suggestions that the prime minister was upstaged by the Pope but i agree that for Brown it has been a huge success.
He managed to get in, say the things that would see him metaphorically hung drawn and quartered any other time and get out again while everybody was looking the other way.
Not as dumb as some seem to think our Prime Minister.