Welcome Back, Mr. President

Ted

dy Roosevelt was the first U.S. President to go abroad on business—to check the construction of his Panama Canal in 1906—but a 21st century leader is expected overseas on a regular basis. Last Thursday, George W. Bush, an unenthusiastic traveler, began his third trip to Asia, where memories of past presidential visits are vivid—and where the footsteps he follows are sometimes those of his old man. His stops:

Japan
Precedents have been set, and they're not good. In 1974, Gerald Ford—dressed in a pair of borrowed formal trousers that barely reached his socks—met then-Emperor Hirohito. (Ford's own pants hadn't been packed.) And in 1992, the first President Bush famously vomited and collapsed in the middle of a sumptuous Japanese dinner. The current President Bush's 16-hour layover in Tokyo, beginning last Friday, proved more convivial, thanks to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's recent pledge of $1.5 billion to rebuild Iraq.

Philippines
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is Bush's staunch ally in the War on Terror. Her presidency is also threatened by a restive Philippine military. We've seen this play before: during a coup attempt against former President Corazon Aquino in 1989, the first President Bush ordered U.S. warplanes to buzz the skies over Manila in order to show that the U.S. was against the mutineers.

Thailand
Lyndon Johnson stopped by twice during the Vietnam War; Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton also called. Before air travel, the two countries nurtured a long-distance friendship. In 1861, King Rama IV offered the U.S. a gift of Thai elephants, which, he said, could be "turned loose in forests and increase till there be large herds." Abraham Lincoln graciously declined, saying the elephants wouldn't survive North American winters.

Singapore
Bush is guaranteed a warm welcome. Until now, his father was the only U.S. President to visit the city-state while in office, in 1992.