One last Bush post

I didn't want to post again about Bush and his visit to Tallinn but there's been some interesting coverage about Bush's short trip. The Eesti media coverage was very detailed, as expected since this is probably one of the top stories of the year there, while the American media did a good job ignoring the trip or just mentioning the fact that he was in Estonia while he was dealing with pressing Iraq issues. The major story that was picked up on was the flat-tax that Eesti has had for a decade and Bush praised. Interestingly it wasn't mentioned anywhere that a lot of people (including President Ilves) want to scrap to flat-tax and go with an old-fashioned progressive tax.

Some of the more interesting news pieces:
-NY Times has a piece about how Bush wouldn't speak at the historic home of the Black Heads (Mustpeade maja) in Riga due to it's name and scantily clad artwork. It's a 700 year old building but apparently it's too sensitive for a president to be seen at a place like that, can't really blame him after all this Kramer mess that's gone on recently.

- A small New Jersey paper had an article about TH Ilves' hometown. "Tom" grew up in Leonia, New Jersey and the article is a nice little piece about him growing up and causing problems at school.

- And finally, Paevaleht has an article saying that Ilves was chewing nicotine gum during Bush' sendoff at the airport. From what I know about Toomas he's constantly chewing this gum in public, the article also mentions that our former president Meri had an agreement with journalists to ensure that they don't photograph him when he's smoking.