Reception

Great. Now, on top of everything else, it appears that the Bush Administration is contagious, and have infected the Japanese. That's all we need.

But I found this to be interesting - Wallace starts out with this sentence - "The kind of greeting a foreigner receives at immigration upon arrival at an international airport can be a good, if imperfect, indication of the country that waits on the other side of the barrier." He then goes on to make critical remarks about Heathrow, Indira Gandhi International, and "Some Middle Eastern airports" before starting telling us that "critics" are saying that Japan's new rules say bad things about that nation. Conspicuously absent is any mention of the United States.

So here's a question. A foreign national has landed at Reagan International for their first visit to the United States. What sort of indication of the character of the United States are they going to get while passing through Immigration? Have we done anything to leave them with the impression that they've arrived in a friendly, welcoming place? Personally, when I last went to London, there were no long lines - and I had no complaints with the service, either. Returning to Seatac - now that was another story entirely.