Bush Has 655 Hangers-on. Is This Not A True Farce?

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday August 27, 2007

When Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem they did so on a donkey and they slept in the stable. This has symbolised humility and humble simplicity for the past 2000 years or so. There is a message in the story that has and still can serve us well.

The travel arrangements of George Bush and his massive entourage arriving in Sydney next month symbolise arrogance and egotistic, inflated self-importance and, in the light of global warming, with the emissions produced from such an unnecessarily large operation, it displays contempt for all those countries and their people (including his own) that will eventually suffer the consequences ("Stand by for Bush's travelling circus", August 25-26).

The message here must be: how on earth have we allowed things to get this way ?

David Wardman Scotland Island

I read with interest "Stand by for Bush's travelling circus". In particular, I was fascinated that there would be "15 sniffer dog teams". What use are sniffer dog teams, without dogs? Unless the dogs have been in Australian quarantine for a considerable period already, they may not enter and operate in Australia immediately - we have strict quarantine laws, which the vast majority of Australians support, and with good cause. There can be no exceptions, not even for the President. If any such absurd (and criminal) exemption is given, then anyone may bring a canine from North America to Australia without quarantine and the results may be catastrophic.

G. Stuart Turramurra

What a carbon imprint: five enormous aircraft, 655 support personnel, his own helicopters and vehicles, and all of this to bring just one man to the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum. That's not a "circus" but an obscenity.

Robyn Prygoda Nowra

"Stand by for Bush's travelling circus" contains an eye-catching illustration. Is this one of Chris Henning's more extreme "True Fictions"? Or could it be, perhaps, an interpretation of our Prime Minister's idea of "aspirational nationalism"? Either way, it would appear to represent a distinct failure in governance, if not a scene from a Peter Sellers movie.

Elizabeth Chandler Mount Victoria

I was aghast when I read of George Bush's entourage. John Kennedy no doubt had as much security as he travelled through Dallas, but it didn't stop him being shot. The world stopped for five minutes then went on turning.

Pat Glassford Marsfield

Perhaps it is fitting that the Bush motorcade resembles a ghastly funeral cortege. Death's apparition seems to hover over everything the US touches.

David Jordan Dee Why