Animal House Summit - New York Times: "The open-microphone incident at the G-8 lunch in St. Petersburg on Monday illustrated once more that W. never made any effort to adapt. The president has enshrined his immaturity and insularity, turning every environment he inhabits - no matter how decorous or serious - into a comfortable frat house.Makes you long for the days of the little blue dress and cigar doesn't it? Nobody died because of a blow job but they certainly are dying because of a snow job.
No matter what the trappings or the ceremonies require of the leader of the free world, he brings the same DKE diction, bearing and cadences, the same insouciance and smart-alecky attitude, the same simplistic approach - swearing, swaggering, talking to Tony Blair with his mouth full of buttered roll, and giving a startled Angela Merkel an impromptu shoulder rub. He can make even a global summit meeting seem like a kegger.
Catching W. off-guard, the really weird thing is his sense of victimization. He's strangely resentful about the actual core of his job. Even after the debacles of Iraq and Katrina, he continues to treat the presidency as a colossal interference with his desire to mountain bike and clear brush.
In snippets of overheard conversation, Mr. Bush says he has not bothered to prepare any closing remarks and grouses about having to listen to other world leaders talk too long. What did he think being president was about?
The world may be blowing up, and the president may have a rare opportunity to jaw-jaw about bang-bang with his peers, but that pales in comparison with his burning desire to return to his feather pillow and gym back at the White House.
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Perhaps it's that anti-patrician chip on his shoulder, his rebellion against a family that prized manners and diplomacy above all. But when bored or frustrated, W. reserves the right to be boorish - no matter if the setting is a gilded palace or a Texas gorge.
He treated Tony "As It Were" Blair like the servant in "The Remains of the Day", blowing off his offer to help with the Israel-Lebanon crisis, and changing the subject from substance to fluff at one point, noting about his 60th-birthday Burberry gift: "Thanks for the sweater. Awfully thoughtful of you." Then he razzed the British prime minister, who was hovering and wheedling like an abused wife: "I know you picked it out yourself."
After doing his best to undermine the U.N. and Kofi Annan, W. talked about the secretary general like a fraternity pledge he wanted to send out for more beer or a keg of Diet Coke: "I felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone with Assad and make something happen."
His loosey-goosey confidence that everything could be fixed with a phone call - and not even a phone call made by him, and not even a phone call made to the Iranians, who have more control over Hezbollah - was striking. He seems to have no clue that his own headlong, heedless actions in the Middle East have contributed to the deepening chaos there, and to Iran's growing influence and America's diminished leverage."
I feel like getting on the phone and...but it's tapped. I could go to the bank...but they track financial transactions. I could move to New Orleans...but it isn't really there anymore. I could hope for things to change in 2008...but the civilized world doesn't have that long.
Next on the agenda. Food fight!
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