Bush Lowers His Trip Expectations : Diplomacy: Any tangible benefits from his visit to Japan will be slow to take shape, President says.

President Bush, who began his trip to Asia saying his top priority was to help create American jobs, arrived in Japan today insisting it would not be fair to hold him to a particular standard of success.

This was the bluntest effort yet by Bush to scale back expectations, swollen by a pre-trip White House buildup, and to acknowledge to voters that any tangible benefits from his journey would be slow to take shape.

In a press conference here on Monday, Bush blamed “political opponents” for demanding too much of his four-nation journey through criticism he compared to “raising the bar on the high jump.”

“No matter what is achieved,” he said, they “will be saying, ‘Hey, you didn’t jump quite high enough; you need to get over the bar.’ ”

But as Bush moved on to the final stop of his 12-day trip, he appeared to be backing further away from an unsteady platform of economic issues for the refuge of security matters that have provided him a more solid base.

Bush is scheduled to visit a Toys R Us store in nearby Nara today to symbolize his hope that Japan might open its market to more such U.S. ventures.

But as Democrats back home pressed Bush to seek specific concessions by the Japanese, the White House was taking steps to minimize the danger that he might be face a negative judgment.

A joint news conference planned for Thursday with Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa was rescheduled to begin at 2:30 a.m. Eastern time--making it impossible for its politically charged contents to be reported in most morning newspapers.

Instead, Bush is to deliver a homecoming address Friday morning on his return to Andrews Air Force Base but not to take questions there, a format that affords him the best opportunity to present an undiluted message.

The steps appeared a clear effort to deprive Democrats of ammunition they have already begun to lob in charging that Bush’s visit will have failed, as House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt said Monday, unless he can secure “concrete action on the part of the Japanese.”

In Seoul, where he won no concessions from South Korea in his talks on trade issues, Bush seemed relieved to climb aboard a helicopter to fly northward to a U.S. base near the Demilitarized Zone and bask in the adulation of some 3,000 cheering troops.

The Bush visit to Camp Casey, the 2nd Infantry Division’s base, lasted under half an hour. But the White House seemed intent on making the most of the visit.

The close attention by Bush to security issues here was prompted in part by the determination of the Administration to maintain pressure on North Korea to live up to its pledge to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons.

But after a visit in which South Korean President Roh Tae Woo turned aside an Administration plea for open agricultural markets by asking for “America’s understanding,” there was good reason for Bush to look elsewhere for a symbol of success.

Indeed, as he began his visit to Japan today, Bush had little to show for his pledge to win more open Asian markets as a means toward U.S. jobs.

In Australia, he found the tables turned on him as discussion of trade issues was dominated by Australian complaints about American agricultural subsidies. In Singapore, Bush could do little but praise what was already a clear Southeast Asian commitment to free trade.

Rather than permit all expectations to be focused on Japan, Bush sought to emphasize that his discussions in Japan are to include attention to security matters and won’t be “exclusively economic.”

But even before Miyazawa vowed that Japan would act as a “friend in need” toward the United States, Bush praised as “very positive” the limited steps taken by Miyazawa so far, including a Japanese cut in interest rates.