For the past several years when in Europe or talking to people from Europe, I have had people asking or telling me these statements. My response has been, I have heard that, but I'm not really sure if it is true or not. I know someone can shed some light on these two statements:

A. President George W. Bush did not have a valid passport when he became President.

B. Fox News is not allowed to broadcast in England/Europe because they mix facts with commentary.

Please, spare me your opinions and personal feelings. Are these statements correct or incorrect. It seems like every time I meet people from Europe, these statements come up.

Is there a prize for the correct answer?

I don't know if GWB had a valid passport or not, and don't feel like researching it to find out -- because I don't care and think it is irrelevant. Even if he had one, he wasn't any big world traveler or knowledgeable about geography or history, and it wouldn't change his attitudes obviously, so what difference does it make.

As for Fox news, I have seen it in Europe and I know I wasn't hallucinating, so no, that isn't true. I had never seen it before, but to my surprise, one of the hotels I stayed in this time had that as one of their cable channels. I don't remember where, but it was either Czech Republic, Germany or POland, as that's where I was.

I don't know of any European country that has that much of press censorship that they have people regulating which broadcasts they think have facts vs. commentary, because it sounds kind of scary if they are saying all European countries control the press that much that they only broadcast what the state allows. I wonder why this European control isn't regulating London tabloids, for example, or plenty of other European media that have commentary.

A. Don't know.
B. Demonstrably false.

Opinion and personal feelings, wanted or not: If networks were not allowed to broadcast because they "mix facts and commentary," there wouldn't be any left to watch.

Does GWB need a passport? The Queen hasn't got one.

Fox news is available in Europe - Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch who owns Sky TV. We get all sorts of stations at the far end of the satellite spectrum - we get al jazeera for example plus loads of news programmes aimed at kurds etc, so Fox is hardly controversial.

A. Almost certainly untrue. Bush travelled to Israel and Egypt when governor of Texas, and therefore had had a passport at some point durinfg he 10 years before his election as President. Who knows whether it was still valid on Jan 20, 2001?

B. There are dozens of countries in Europe, each with their own rules on broadcast ownership. Fox would probably have been very welcome in Burlusconi's Italy (RIP).

Fox News can't broadcast terrestrially in the UK because there's limited spectrum available and it's simply not set up to make a bid for what there is.

But if it did have the resources to bid for the ITV or Channel 5 franchise, it wouldn't be able to get it, partly for the reasons wally mentions. British terrestrial TV must conform to a set of requirements on balance, or the station loses its licence.

But even if it adapted a Fox UK format to meet our rules on balance, Murdoch would have to sell a huge slug of his press interests to meet our cross-media rules.

There's no law - except Murdoch's ownership of Fox's copyright - to prevent an enterprising satellite owner from making Fox US available. In practice, of course, Murdoch probably wouldn't want his current, mainstream and highly successful, Sky TV having its revenues cannibalised.

Thank you, flanneruk, for that well-written response.

In our neck of the UK, Fox is shown 24/7 on channel 510 of Sky Satellite. I sometimes watch it for certain U.S. coverage, for example, extreme weather events, esp. ones that are in regions of particular interest to me (Pacific NW, Florida, mid-Atlantic/NE).
I've also seen it in Austria, it was the English language news channel at the Grand Hotel.

A. Who cares - nothing would ever open that scrunched up little mind.

B. True - unfortunately many poor europeans are also subject to faux news. I trust most of them see it for the super rightist propaganda it is.

Fox News is not allowed to broadcast in England/Europe because they mix facts with commentary.

well if the same criteria were applied to the UK tabloid press none would be allowed to publish and Murdoch owns some of these i believe.
Murdoch=Bad News

I'm not sure that when a Governor travels officially (if that is, in fact what Bush did) he would be required to go through Immigration upon arrival or upon return to the US for that matter.

Face it...there are a lot of things "officials" are not required to do.

My impression is that some of the tabloids dispense with facts altogether.

I had heard that the president of the U.S. had never traveled outside the states until after he became president. Your question prompted me to do a Google search. I read the following from this link:

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/pr...george-w-bush/

Regardless of Cheney's qualifications, world leaders -- especially the Europeans -- were flabbergasted by the Republican party's nominee for President. George was not exactly what you would call well-traveled. Campaign staffers claimed that he had taken "more than a dozen" trips outside the U.S., although they admitted that the vague figure included "many, many" trips to Mexico and Canada.

Bush made a month-long excursion to China while his father was stationed there, which the New York Times summed up as "trying to date Chinese women (unsuccessfully) during a visit to Beijing in 1975." He had visited Israel and Egypt with the National Governors Association, and also the African country of Gambia. Later on in the campaign, Bush staffers claimed that he has also visited England, Scotland, and Italy, as well as vacationed in France and Bermuda. This was not very impressive to the people of Europe, who have to cross international borders just to take their kids to Legoland.

frankly, a lot of this kind of stuff is exaggerated in europe. these are just urban legends. they catch on with people who don't like the subject of the legend and take a life of their own.

i wouldn't worry about it or listen to any of this rubbish. people who go around saying rubbish like this to visitors are ignorant (believe it or not, there are ignorant europeans). i think it's very strange that you heard this many times though.

I agree with walkaround - i detest W and all that he stands for in foreign policy or most but whether or not he traveled as an adult abroad much obviously makes zero difference to being President.
Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington and other 'great' presidents probably never went abroad either. And though Jacques Chirac worked dipping ice cream for a year in Howard Johnsons in Boston does little as i can see in his job performance whether he had or not - he's gotta speak some English but never heard him even try.

Re need for passports:

If one starts from Dublin and travels East for 2000 miles, on passes through The UK, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Beylorus and Russia to get to Moscow.

Nine countries, at least 7 languages.

Start from Los Angeles, you stop in St. Louis.

One People, One Country, One Language (well sort of)

facinating response ira. I get rather frustrated at the myth the GW somehow fell off a turnip truck and landed in the White House.
Say what you want about the man, but he has never tried to stop people from inderestimating him. (ok, so some of his actions haven;t quite hrlped him either!!)

>Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington and other 'great' presidents probably never went abroad either.<

Definitely true for Lincoln, and pretty much true for Washington, at least prior to becoming President - but Jefferson was Ambassador ("Minister," actually) to France from 1785 to 1789 and was probably the most "Francophile" President ever, even trying, unsuccessfully, to establish Bordeaux grape varieties at Monticello.

highledge, not a turnip truck, his dad's coat-tails.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLI...orld.traveler/