It's All Business Now At Formerly Friendly Summit

For Bush, who likes to personalize his ties to foreign leaders, there was no respite and little warmth to be found by looking northward. Even his penchant for bestowing nicknames on other leaders has gone awry with the Canadian prime minister. Bush caused a furor in his last meeting with Harper by calling him “Steve.” Harper, it turns out, is a rather formal fellow who is very much a “Stephen” and never a “Steve.” The prime minister said Bush's comment “made my mother quite angry because she's made it her whole life to get people to call me Stephen instead of Steve.” This time, the president slipped up only once. At Tuesday's press conference, he called his counterpart “Steve” but immediately corrected himself to go with “Stephen.” Luckily for Bush, all diplomacy and all summits eventually get down to national self-interest. Neither Harper nor Calderón want to be Bush's buddy. In fact, polls in both countries suggest they would do better to be seen as standing up to Bush. But both recognize the enormous importance of their relations with the United States. As Harper joked about Bush, “If a guy buys 85 percent of our exports and wants to call me Steve, that's OK with me.” Find the full article at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070823-9999-1n23summit.html

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