United States President George W. Bush arrived in the Western German city of Mainz under intense security on Wednesday on stage two of his fence-mending trip through Europe. He was in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday for meetings with French President Jacques Chirac and NATO. Not surprisingly, given the strained nature of trans-Atlantic relations since the US war in Iraq, the Bush visit -- the second official visit to Germany of his presidency -- is all German commentators want to talk about on Wednesday.

The major coup of the day, however, is landed by the shrill yet widely-read tabloid Bild, ironically the only one of Germany's major dailies not to have a Bush story grace its front page. Instead, almost lost among the paper's preferred content of colorful pictures of half-nude women, is an article by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder welcoming Bush to Germany. What does he write? Pretty much what you might expect. Bush's choice of Europe as his first second-term trip abroad shows that "America especially values its relationship with Europe." The United States has always been important for the Germans especially since it helped Germany reunify itself. And, of course, America and Germany have a number of common interests in the world including the fight against terrorism, against hunger, against weapons of mass destruction and against regional crises. "Occasional differences in opinion are completely normal in a close partnership. It is important that one discusses them and that decisions are then made together."

Another quasi-coup was landed by the conservative daily Die Welt in their front-page story based on a survey they commissioned. Apparently -- and as we reported yesterday in SPIEGEL's Bushwrapped -- Germans trust Russian President Vladimir Putin more than they do Bush. Based partially on that survey, the paper prints an editorial called "Anti-Americanism Today." The provocative first line: "Never in the history of the United States was anti-Americanism so widespread and deeply seated as it is today." The piece builds its argument on the fact that Germany no longer feels indebted to America for its post-World War II aid and that today's anti-American feeling is even stronger than in the Vietnam era. "One almost has the impression that the Bush government is loathed not despite, but because of, its commitment to defending freedom." The paper argues that a roll reversal has taken place, with the idealists now living on the American side of the Atlantic and Realpolitik being practiced mostly in Europe.

A second editorial posits a similar thesis. Namely that at the same time Europe is looking askew at America's obsession with morals and religious values, the old continent is passing anti-headscarf laws and bickering about the religion of potential European commissioners(Rocco Buttiglione). In other words, a double standard is at work. But, following that promising start, the piece quickly descends into the anti-intellectualism one too-often sees in Die Welt.

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung focuses more on the symbolism of a Brussels trip that saw President Bush meeting with NATO and the European Union at the same time. "It is important because the relationship between the United States and the EU both requires a certain amount of explanation but is also expandable, and because the EU and US are both partners and tough competitors." But it is this dynamic relationship that should be valued by both sides. "Both a US policy aimed at dividing Europe and an anti-American policy of building a European counter-power is misguided. This is because for America, the valued added by a united Europe is immeasurably greater than what the two sides can achieve independently."

The center-left Sueddeutsche Zeitung chooses to look ahead on Wednesday to the meeting between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, scheduled to take place in Slovakia on Thursday. Noting that Bush jumped the gun with his speech on Tuesday -- in which he issued a number of only slightly veiled comments about Russia's rather meager democracy -- the paper argues that Bush has struck the correct note in US relations with Russia. "The US President sees no contradiction in doing business with the increasingly autocratic Putin and at the same time reminding him of his democratic commitments." The paper also notes -- no-doubt a reference to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's close relationship with Putin -- that Bush also said that "The EU states ... need to place democratic reforms at the center of their dialogue with Russia."