It seems appropriate that this was where and how US President George W. Bush's European trip came to an end: Two world leaders in a conversation about democracy and freedom at the castle in Bratislava, a city that anticipated the 1989 fall of the Iron Curtain with a 1988 demonstration on behalf of religious freedom. On last Thursday, though, the moment that took place shortly after 6 p.m. somehow made sense.

George Walker Bush stood at his podium, wearing a dark blue suit and a red tie, forceful and upright, a man who is clearly accustomed to wielding power. The US president pulled back his lower lip, one of the few signs he has displayed of anything approaching tension during his trip. But he also smiled, grinned and laughed. Russian President Vladimir Putin, standing next to him, seemed small, rigid and serious by comparison.

The two had already discussed the principal topics of Bush's trip: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Palestine, terrorism and China. Bush had said, "Sometimes in politics yes means 'maybe,' and no means 'if,' but added that the Russian president is a guy "when he says yes, he means yes and when he says no, he means no." Then the topic turned to freedom and democracy. Bush had mentioned deficiencies in this regard -- he was referring to Russia, not to the United States.

Russia, Putin answered, embarked on a road to democracy 14 years ago. "This is our final choice and we have no way back," he added. Bush said it was Putin's most important statement of the summit. It was exactly the sentence he had wanted to hear.

Had anything like this happened before? An American and Russian head of state discussing democracy and criticizing one another? Was it historic?

A Russian reporter took the opportunity to go on the counterattack against America. In a long-winded question he addressed the issue of democracy in America, but managed to say almost nothing. In fact, the Russian reporter could have saved his breath and mentioned no more than three words, "Guantanamo" and "Abu Ghraib." He might also have chosen to mention "Florida 2000."

Put as it was, the question was easy for Bush. He was already grinning while listening, and then was clearly pleased to launch into a tribute to American values, human dignity and distribution of power. Nevertheless, it is possible that he sensed, at that very moment, that the new European-American relations will no longer be a one-way street, and that he can expect Europeans to be judging him in the future, even when it comes to his domestic policies.

Freedom and democracy are, after all, his values, his favorite catchphrases. George W. Bush had come to Europe to deliver a simple message: democracy begets freedom begets security begets a peaceful world. This is his belief.

For quite some time, Bush was alone in holding this belief. Indeed, that was exactly why he traveled to Europe where he spent four days in Brussels, Mainz, and Bratislava, visited both NATO and EU headquarters, and talked with both German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Vladimir Putin.

Now, he is no longer alone. He has rediscovered a few of his estranged friends while leaving others far behind. Indeed, his trip was a triumph. At one point, he said he was the "same old Bush," then laughed heartily at his own joke, a purely coquettish move.

Bush II, a re-elected president, can afford to be laughing. He may be as much a zealot as ever and he is certainly self-confident, but European governments would be wise to stop underestimating him. Unlike Bush I, the re-elected W. is rather quick on his feet. He is curious, capable of exercising self-irony and apparently a quick study. At times during this trip, he was quiet and seemed almost modest.

As he himself pointed out while in Brussels, "This is a listening tour."

The tour began at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. Bush was taken to his plane by helicopter, and Brussels was the first stop. Bush's staff had taken over the ballroom at the Concert Noble and turned it into something resembling a high-school gym during a political campaign. The stage was no longer a stage. Bush spoke from a position deliberately chosen to make him seem smaller, more reserved, but at the same time distinguished against a backdrop of expansive views and curtains. Beethoven's Sixth set the tone for the president's speech about friendship and peace. He said that America and Europe face an era of possibilities and of important ramifications. He received brief applause, but then came those unfortunate discussions.

After the Iraq war, Bush's advisors were in favor of taking an even sharper approach toward Germany and France. Condoleezza Rice's proposal was to punish France and to ignore Germany, and the conservatives in Washington spent months debating the pros and cons of taking a hard line and a very hard line. But then, about four months ahead of the election, Bush asked his advisors to put together a new plan for Europe.

The "rapprochement" concept was finished quickly, by as early as the summer of 2004. It remained secret because Bush first wanted to win the election by demonizing Europe and the United Nations. But now he is making an about-face so abrupt that it has come as an astonishment to the Europeans.

The reason for the incredulity is that Bush, once a wartime president, now seems intent on becoming a peacetime president in his second term -- a president who will leave the world with new democracies or, to quote Bush, freedom. Bush II is convinced that he needs Europe for practical and financial reasons, but also to legitimize his policies.

But a man who is on good terms with dictators and faces opposition from a democratic Europe will find it difficult to explain exactly how he plans to bring democracy to the world.

Part Two: In "Bushworld," the truth is not so important.

This conundrum is precisely why he is taking an approach Europe would have expected from Democratic John Kerry. He acknowledges the EU. He asks questions. He remains silent and listens. He praises and he says "thank you," and because his counterparts know just how aggressive this man was until recently, they are all asking themselves whether this new approach is sincere. What does he want? Could it be that the president is simply torn?

It was amusing to watch the Europeans in Brussels dancing around Bush. "No, no, we can't possibly like the guy," they seemed to be saying. "Not after everything he has done, not after that war, those lies!" Many Germans and many Frenchman sat in their small offices and hoped that Bush would come to Europe and apologize for his mistakes and beg for help for the future. And then they would say: "Well, Mr. President, we'll think about it."

But things happened a little differently than expected. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt was the first to latch onto Bush's talk of freedom and democracy, saying that Europe is sometimes hesitant and divided, while America takes a more active approach. And then everyone began praising the president.

"If embarrassment could kill, there would be corpses in the streets of Brussels," said Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, for example, was visibly uncomfortable because he was only permitted to speak with Bush in passing, but not officially. All the Bush haters, even the Greens, suddenly wanted to be seen close to Bush. Oh, it's just a photo, they'd say. Couldn't you take a snapshot of me with the president?

Only Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair steered clear of the love fest. His voters are weary of Blair's cozy relationship with Bush and because Blair wants to remain in power he, of all people, was keeping his distance from Bush this time around. But then Bush had to continue to his next scheduled stop, Germany, a choice of destination that clearly displeased Berlusconi.

The president was accompanied on his trip by his wife Laura, and everywhere he went he kept repeating that men should pay attention to strong women. Wherever he appeared, the first row of seats was occupied by Laura Bush, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in addition to his new National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, Chief of Staff Andrew Card and Press Secretary Scott McClellan. Bush would stand in front, smiling and winking to his strong women, sometimes in the middle of a sentence.

When Bush travels, the entire White House travels with him. He essentially travels in a bubble making it seem to him as though he's never actually left home. The food, the signs on the doors, the security personnel and the rules in the bubble are all American. The hundred or so members of the White House press corps traveled with him and Fox and CNN were, as usual, in the front at the press conferences with the French and Germans behind them.

It is, after all, the White House press corps that sets the tone for how Bush's global policies are going to be perceived. In each hotel, they're given access to a "Transportation Center" and a "Filing Center" where they can file their reports and tapings. They sit in front of their computers, waiting for the president's equally clever and quick staff members -- people who can only be quoted as "senior advisors" -- to explain the president to them. A senior advisor will typically say things to the effect that Bush meant to convey such-and-such with a given sentence, while German Chancellor Schroeder, for example, understood the same sentence in a completely different way. That's what they call a "press briefing."

One sometimes forgets that the White House isn't interested in realities, and certainly not in the truth. The White House simply wants to sell George W. Bush. It creates its own reality, a world unto itself: Bushland. This is why a trip like this is not unlike an ad agency's company picnic: Bush & Friends -- the name of the company and ad campaign are one.

The only conversations in Bushland are good conversations. The atmosphere is always friendly, exceptionally friendly. The world, so goes the message, can be molded, and Bush represents a step forward toward achieving better things. This is the message his advisors, the White House and the president want to convey. And this, after all, is one of the key differences between Bush and Europe: He believes that it is possible to wage his war on terrorism, to achieve a new world order. The Europeans don't see it as a war and view terrorism as a more complex phenomenon. Europe reacts to events as they happen -- as long as they can agree on what to do, of course.

Many said that Bush was rather hesitant before Sept. 11, 2001. He had no knack for foreign policy, said critics, and he thought the idea of "nation building" was absurd. Since then, his politics have been characterized by instinct and reflex. He takes risks and says that while Sept. 11 may have been of temporary importance for Europe, it was a day that changed everything for him, forever.

For this reason, it was also Bush I, at times, who was visiting Europe last week. He gave a pep talk to troops in Wiesbaden, spoke directly to the people in Bratislava, and brazenly used the event to draw a comparison between a free Eastern Europe and the brave people of Iraq, between 1989 and 2005.

This George W. Bush is a decision-marker, unscrupulous, advised at home by nationalists such as Vice President Richard Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and, because he no longer wishes to govern or perhaps even senses that there is no nothing left to govern, he creates events himself. He builds new nations. In fact, what he would like to do most of all is build a new world order.

This is why half of the world is afraid of this man, and why Bush is considered the world's most-hated man. He is, feel many, dangerous.

Much has been said about the security precautions in Mainz. In fact, even the bus trip seemed uncanny to those in Bush's entourage: a country devoid of people! Enemy territory? Bush and Schroeder might as well have met in a nuclear submarine 250 feet below sea level. It would have been cheaper, less complicated and certainly couldn't have been less exciting.

The Germans say that everything was done at Washington's request, although the word "request" here is disingenuous. It is important to speak diplomatically on this German-American orgy of friendship. The Americans say that the scope of security, the 10,000 police officers, was not something they wanted, a claim supported by the fact that Belgium and Slovakia were less manic in their efforts to protect their guest. In fact, Bratislava's freedom fighters were even able to convince him to mingle with the people.

Of course, things went well to extremely well between the Chancellor and the President. They spoke for 90 minutes, Schroeder said he was astonished by Bush's hunger for knowledge, and they discussed other great statesman, men like Putin, Abbas and Sharon.

Afterwards, one member of the American delegation, someone one could call a "junior advisor," expressed his surprise over minor mishaps. The fact that Schroeder picked up Bush from the airport was certainly historic, the official said. But a car parked at the bottom of the airplane steps obscuring the two leaders up to their necks and resulting in horrendous TV images of the event? Bush & Friends would never have allowed such a thing to happen.