Rostock, Germany – The huge headline in Wednesday’s edition of the German national newspaper Bild blared the question that inquiring minds in Germany wanted to know: “What Does Bush Find So Fascinating About His Girlfriend Angela?”
President Bush, who arrived Wednesday evening in this Baltic Sea coastal region of what once was communist East Germany, has formed a fast friendship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that has made them the new odd couple of international politics.
He’s the architect of the pre- emptive-strike war on Iraq and defender of the U.S.-operated prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She leads Western Europe’s biggest nation, one that staunchly opposes the war, and she emphatically wants the Guantanamo prison closed.
But those big differences don’t seem to be a problem between the two leaders personally.
“There’s a personal chemistry that works for them,” said Helga Welsh, an associate political science professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in U.S.-Europe relations. “Merkel can bring up unpopular topics like Guantanamo Bay and not get mad.”
While other European leaders, such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac, are in the twilight of their political careers, Merkel is on the rise.
She has forged a leading role in Europe’s efforts to prevent Iran from resuming its nuclear program. Next year, she will head the Group of Eight – composed of leaders of eight major industrialized democracies – while holding the rotating European Union presidency for six months.
Merkel has been in office only eight months, but she’s becoming the White House’s go-to ally in Europe, experts in transatlantic relations say. She’s already made the frosty relationship that Bush had with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder a distant memory.
“Tony Blair’s position is waning by the day, by the hour,” said Jackson Janes, executive director of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington. “Who can Bush look to for help in his remaining time in office? There’s nobody in a better position than Angela Merkel.”
She is looking to deepen her friendship with Bush by showing him around her native province.
Merkel is Germany’s first female chancellor and the first East German to lead the country since the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall led to the reunification of East and West Germany.
