Bush Behaving Badly
It was quite a performance the President put on at the G-8 Summit in Saint Petersburg, Russia this year. If you, like me, understand the phrase "quite a performance" to mean "whoa, dude, chill." Maybe a switch to decaffeinated is in order. "Yo, Blair." That's how he hailed the Prime Minister of Great Britain at a photo op at the closing of the conference. "Yo, Blair." Sounds like how I might greet one of my friends, but you know what, I'm not the President of the United States of America at a major world summit. Which, as Martha Stewart says, is a good thing.
Bush then proceeded to mumble some spurious advice to Tony Blair with a mouth full of partially masticated roll, answering once and for all why his staff goes to such lengths to keep him corralled like a roping calf in Crawford, Texas, where chewing with your mouth open is considered an art form as well as a compliment to the chef. We got some spoiled fruit running the country and he's loose, playing frat boy diplomat with the big kids, and everything is going horribly awry, people!
Bush, as bored with the whole concept of diplomacy as a five year old stuck in the quantum physics section of a Jamaican library, and obviously distressed at not finding Premier Putin to gaze soul searchingly into the eyes of, wandered around the big conference table finally lighting upon German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Distractedly, he began to give her a backrub prompting a typical Tuetonic reaction, in which Ms. Merkel tensed up tighter than a retaining wire on the mast of a sailing ship in a force five gale. She hunched her shoulders, grimaced, and threw up her hands in an apparent plea for the World Court to augment Bush's future war crimes trial with a sexual harassment charge.
What did he expect? For her to turn around and whisper seductively, "I'll give you a week to cut that out?" She's German, for crum's sake. East German. Everyone knows the East Germans are as cuddly as a stainless steel teddy bear. I imagine we should consider ourselves lucky he didn't grab her butt and make "honk-honk" noises. Or pulled a "gotcha" where he pokes her in the chest and then tweaks her nose after she looks down. And you know the cupped hand under the armpit thing is definitely in his arsenal.
We haven't even talked about the word that rhymes with spit and would cost me $325,000 if I accidentally blurted it out during my day job on the radio. The hypocrisy of him signing that sanctimonious bill is so thick you can scrape the excess mendacity off the top like froth off a cappuccino. THEN, without missing a beat, he asks President Hu of China, "how long does it take you to get home? 8 hours? Wow. Russia's a big country. So is China, isn't it?" Yes, George, China is a big country. Got a lot of people in it too. And Mexico. Great Mexican food. And full of Mexicans. But you already know that, because you speak Mexican, don't you?
Can you imagine Roosevelt giving the Reichs Fuhrer a back rub? Well, actually, I guess Neville Chamberlain kind of did, but that's not the point. Instead of grandstanding for its election year base, it is incumbent upon Congress to save our nation further embarrassments by passing a law immediately prohibiting all of the members of the Bush family from any televised meeting with a foreign leader where food is being served. And mittens. They should be required to wear mittens.
