Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

To kick off his Latin American tour around Venezuela, George W. Bush sat down with CNN En Espanol’s Juan Carlos Lopez. The purpose of the trip, other than trying to show Hugo Chavez who is boss, is Bush’s desire to “remind people throughout our neighborhood that America cares about them”. To hammer home the point, Bush explains that he brought with him “a message of hope”. He also hopes that Latinos will realize how generous America is to our “neighborhood” and wants to see “the taxpayers” get more credit. The comment was eerily reminiscent of Bush’s recent 60 Minutes interview where he questioned whether Iraqis had shown a “gratitude level significant enough” towards Americans. In Bush’s defense, there does seem to be a disconnect between the number of times he states America is a “compassionate country” and the world seeing us that way.

CNN’s Lopez also wanted to know how much compassion Bush intended to bestow upon Scooter Libby to which Bush gave the following surprising response:

After which, in a rare moment of Bush wearing his emotion on his sleeve, he added that the verdict made him “sad.” But that was not the first time in the interview that Bush eloquently let his feelings be known, earlier having described his daughter Jenna as, “an accomplished (searching for words) woman.” If nothing else, the man that would be king does have a way with words.