US President George W. Bush greeted Slovaks who gathered in thousands to
hear him speak in the centre of Bratislava on Thursday. He called them
"friends, allies and brothers" and harked back to the days of
the Velvet Revolution when Slovaks and Czechs threw off communist rule.
After praising Slovakia for its young democracy and for sending soldiers
to Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr Bush went off to Bratislava Castle for a
summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It's interesting to
speculate why Bratislava was chosen for the Bush-Putin summit but