Brown and Bush: not so warm

It can be interesting how differently different papers will cover the same story. The UK's Sun led with "Gordon Brown last night praised George Bush for leading the global war on terror -- saying the world owed America a huge debt."

The WashPost's Dana Milbank, on the other hand, stressed Brown distancing himself from Bush: "Brown announced that 'Afghanistan is the front line against terrorism' -- contradicting Bush's frequent claim that Iraq is the 'central front' in that battle. While Bush spoke passionately of terrorists as 'evil,' Brown spoke of terrorism as a 'crime.' Where Bush described their meeting as 'casual' and 'relaxed, Brown found them to 'full and frank' -- diplomatic code for tough."

I think the Post came closer to getting it right. The nice things Brown said were more polite than effusive, and referred more to the U.S. as a country than to Bush.