Disappointing some of his political advisers and allies, who felt he should have returned to Washington at once from a trip to Florida to symbolize that the government was functioning, President Bush headed instead to Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, where a more secure command post was available.
"Part of the reason that we're traveling to Ghana is because you've got there a functioning democracy, a president who's serious about reducing corruption, and you've seen significant economic growth," he said at the news conference.
As Egypt tries to fashion a functioning democracy after President Hosni Mubarak's departure, land grabs to the south are threatening its ability to put bread on the table because all of Egypt's grain is either imported or produced with water from the Nile River, which flows north through Ethiopia and Sudan before reaching Egypt.
Next, I had the good luck to be invited to a function with the President, completely unrelated to Code..org, and I was part of a receiving line of people who got to shake hands with the president for 2 seconds.
Any American president with a functioning brain would be tough on Pakistan, especially as far as drones are concerned".
Some of it is a function of the former president's playful manner, which by all accounts has become more playful in his retirement.
Last year he attended his "giving day", a function Huang held as president of the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China.
It was a courtesy call, but Rosenthal, also a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, could not resist asking: "How come every time I come across the CIA I find they are on the side of the fingernail pullers?" The director replied calmly, "We are only a function of what the President wants".
"It's not just a function of personal charm," the president said.
"There is no vacancy rate in Manhattan; it is a function of price," said Nancy Packes, president of Halstead/Feathered Nest Leasing.
