Summit is no triumph

By Howard LaFranchi for the Christian Science Monitor:

BRASILIA, Brazil — Despite a five-day trip to South and Central America, President Bush was unable to work the same wonders on U.S.-Latin American relations that he did earlier this year on ties to Europe.
Indeed, this trip was unlike Bush's February journey across the Atlantic, which was widely seen as successful in repairing relations damaged by the U.S. decision to invade Iraq. Instead, the three-country trip that ends today has revealed more than anything how distant and dissonant relations with much of the hemisphere — in particular South America — have become.
"The sense one has after these few days that Bush spent in the region is that Latin America is very, very far from Washington," says Felix Pena, a specialist in international economic relations in Buenos Aires. "It's not good for anyone involved, but the events don't seem to allow any other conclusion."