By PHK
I’m not sure why W even bothers to visit Vietnam – or Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation – for that matter. 
As is W’s wont anyway - given his inability to handle foreign visits, visitors and his terrible image abroad - perhaps he should have sent someone else to represent him at the 21 member nation APEC (Asian-Pacific Economics Council) summit in Hanoi – like maybe daddy who knows how to interact with foreigners. Besides, W’s presence is down right embarrassing: aside from his well photographed inappropriate body-language documented here by my colleagues on WhirledView as well as by Princess Sparkle Pony, W is now so politically weak that he couldn’t even deliver the US-Vietnamese trade deal that our post-election, shell-shocked, lame duck Republican Congress refused to approve just prior to his stepping on Air Force One.
W was raced through Hanoi yesterday as if it were Al Anbar province at the stroke of midnight. Moreover, he’s not even staying overnight in Indonesia – destination city still undisclosed – maybe for good reason since the anti-American/Bush demonstrations have already started - for fear of his own neck. At least this is how veteran accompanying New York Times reporters David Sanger and Helene Cooper characterized W’s “speed tourism” – as opposed to Clinton’s slower people-friendly visit to Vietnam in 2000 which demonstrated, in sharp contrast, how presidential visits can be effective tools of public diplomacy and, thereby, improve this country’s image abroad. That is, when the country has a president who exhibits the interest, possesses the people skills – and demonstrates the willingness to put security in its place – not the other way around.
But no. After touchdowns in Ho Chi Minh City, aka Saigon, for a lightening flash dash through the Vietnamese stock exchange and a brief meeting with “civic leaders” somewhere in Indonesia, W’s sanitized cocoon will make the 12 hour or so flight from somewhere near the Indian Ocean all the way to Hawaii where he and his oversized security contingent can breathe a sign of relief within the soft safe-at-last sound of the Pacific Ocean's waves lapping the sands of Waikiki. That is, if W’s minders allow him an overnight at one of Honolulu’s premiere hotels along that strip of sand made famous by Hollywood.
The drawbacks of W’s cocoon style life
It must be tough to live encased in a presidential cocoon – although other presidents, including Bush ‘41 have certainly done a better job of gnawing through those tightly wrapped silken threads. But maybe this is because these former presidents came to our head of state position with a curiosity about and experience in the world that W has never exhibited. Perhaps also because W’s predecessors were not so weak and ill-informed that they let a power hungry Vice President and voracious security apparatus call the shots. And don’t give me that post 9/11 excuse: international, anti-American terrorism was very much with us throughout my Foreign Service career.
I still remember the grainy elementary school history book photos of FDR, Stalin and Churchill at Tehran and Yalta when “speed tourism” was unknown. 
I found Hanoi fascinating when I visited it in February 2002. And frankly, I fail to understand the need for such enhanced security in what is one of the last remaining Communist Party controlled police states to the extent that W and spouse couldn’t at least have taken a spin around town – maybe even stopped at one of those Vietnamese restaurants with a French twist if Clinton’s noodle shop stop was not their cup of tea. But then, I guess not - given W’s antipathy to anything remotely French.
Laura, reportedly, made it to Vietnam’s Museum of Ethnology and Temple of Literature at least with other APEC spouses. The Ethnology Museum is worth a visit, as is the Temple of Literature, but it was not the highlight of my Hanoi stay. Presumably the Ethnology Museum was chosen because of its remote location in the Hanoi suburb of Cau Giay which would have made the security dragnet a relative cinch. This museum, by the way, also has a very strong French connection: the 2,500 square meter exhibition area was designed with the help of the Musee de l’Homme in Paris. Maybe Laura is not as much of a Francophobe as her Texas hill-Billy sounding husband. She may well have even grown up on the Madeleine books which made Paris a future dream destination for every young American girl even if Madeleine’s convent school looked like a must miss.
But to pass up seeing Hanoi’s lakes, its temples, its tree-lined streets of fading and paint peeling French colonial houses, its crowded old town crammed with oriental style small shops and wares separated 
according street, is a sad commentary on this president, his wife and those who he permits to manipulate his strings. I’m sorry, but a short visit to an “ecumenical” church in a former French basilica in a country that is officially atheist but primarily Buddhist to show fealty to W’s evangelical base just doesn’t cut it with me. Whoever dreamed up W's unofficial-official itinerary needs to be sent back to the drawing boards - even from a political standpoint.
Even if one isn’t interested in visiting quaint Christian religious outposts or shopping for silk, trinkets or fine art – and I happen to like several contemporary Vietnamese painters a lot – the political dimensions of Hanoi should be a must see for Americans whether they come from the Vietnam War-generation or not. It’s also worth reflecting on the dykes that protect the city from flooding and the fact that the Johnson administration chose not to bomb them for fear of enlarging that war and bringing in China's Peoples Liberation Army.
Wouldn’t a visit to the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” have also been in order? This is the prison where US POWs were incarcerated - and before them Vietnamese nationalists who had fought the French colonialists until 1954. Why wouldn’t a brief visit to this nefarious building - officially called the Prison de Hoa Lo - in downtown Hanoi have been appropriate? I think it would have been a fitting tribute for even this draft-dodger President. Above all it would have allowed him to show a little personal respect to those American military pilots who lived and died there in service to his own country.
Since W doesn’t reputedly read well – or respond well to written information either – maybe the powerful visual image of that cold and dreary former prison and the crass propaganda that comes with it would have sobered up our emperor with no clothes as to the ramifications of using U.S. military power in a country on a distant continent particularly when it means being dragged into someone else’s civil war. It’s not just the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who died in that war or the 58,000 Americans who did as well. There was a reason for the Powell doctrine which he developed as a result of his real life experiences in this Southeast Asian country during that send-in-the-troops, lead-with-the-fist fiasco. Too bad W didn’t make Colin Powell Secretary of Defense as opposed to the terrible draft dodger choice we got instead.
I even found Ho Chi Minh’s unpretentious lakeside house on stilts where he lived and worked from 1958 to his death in 1969 and even Ho’s Leninist-style tomb where his mummified body now reposes worth the visit.
The new Hanoi
Or it might have been interesting for W to have visited the “new” Hanoi and seen its swarms of youth in black fake leather jackets crowding the streets on motorcycles, its new shopping malls, its billboards advertising cell phones, television sets and other western electronics, or even its joint venture factories that churn out clothing and other goods for both the western and Asian markets. These are every-day sights that make up the real Hanoi. Some of the products also find their way into local markets at a fraction of the price. If the Bushes’ weren’t into French food or Vietnamese noodles, they could have at least tried a joint venture restaurant that caters to the steak and pizza crowd.
But then, what do I know? I only visited Hanoi as a tourist and I’m sure there are lots of places I missed. Yet, W’s gilded cage drop-by pales in comparison. Was this really worth the time, effort or tax payers' money?
Photo and Map Credits: Map of Southeast Asia, Perry-Castenada Map Collection, University of Texas; Photo of Winston Churchill, FDR and Stalin at Yalta, Wikipedia; Photos of the Temple of Literature, Hanoi, Vietnam by PHKushlis, Garden Houses, Hanoi, Vietnam by PHKushlis, Young men on motorbikes, Hanoi Old Town by PH Kushlis; and Guard at Ho Chi Minh's Tomb, Hanoi by PH Kushlis.