President Bush can look forward to a hearty welcome from his old friend, the charismatic Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Rome. That's not what was found on the streets, however, where anti-Bush sentiment over the war in Iraq still lingers.Anti-war activists and hundreds of other demonstrators marched through the Italian capital on Wednesday as Bush arrived for a visit that was to include meetings with Berlusconi on Thursday and the pope on Friday.
The president, as usual, kept about his business. He encountered scant signs of protest on his motorcade route on Thursday.
At the elegant hillside Villa Aurelia, part of the American Academy in Rome, Bush met with young Italian entrepreneurs who receive training in the United States through an exchange program. He encouraged them to come get the "firsthand truth about America" and disputed what he called misinformation and propaganda about the United States.
Read More
