[tag]George W. Bush[/tag] has had enough problems around [tag]open[/tag] [tag]microphone[/tag]s that you’d think he’d learn to be more careful. No such luck.
It wasn’t meant to be overheard. Private luncheon conversations among world leaders, picked up by a microphone, provided a rare window into both banter and substance — including President Bush cursing Hezbollah’s attacks against Israel.
[tag]Bush[/tag] expressed his frustration with the United Nations and his disgust with the militant Islamic group and its backers in Syria as he talked to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the closing lunch at the Group of Eight summit.
“See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s— and it’s over,” Bush told Blair as he chewed on a buttered roll.
He told Blair he felt like telling U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who visited the gathered leaders, to get on the phone with Syrian President Bashar Assad to “make something happen.”
The video — AP has the CNN clip, though I suspect there are others — is worth watching. Blair appears anxious to explain the Middle East to Bush, while the president is slouching and talking with his mouth full.
Regardless, I can’t help but notice that the president often comes across as an unsophisticated simpleton in public, with embarrassing malapropisms and difficulties in answering unscripted questions, but incidents like this one at the G8 luncheon suggest Bush is even less impressive in private.
Indeed, the transcript of the president’s open-mike remarks during a photo-op at the lunch offers a series of insightful exchanges.
* On his public remarks during the lunch: “No, just going to make it up. I’m not going to talk too long like the rest of them. Some of these guys talk too long.”
* On sticking to his schedule: “Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight. How about you? Where are you going home? This is your neighborhood, doesn’t take you long to get home. You eight hours? Me too. Russia’s a big country and you’re a big country. Takes him eight hours to fly home…. Russia’s big and so is China.”
* Upon seeing Tony Blair get out of his chair: “Yo, Blair. What are you doing? Are you leaving?”
“Yo, Blair“? Seriously?
There’s a classic Saturday Night Live skit from the 1980s featuring Ronald Reagan as a slow, quiet man in public, masking an adept technocrat with a vast policy expertise and an eye for remarkable detail. The “amiable dunce” facade was just an act.
Similarly, political observers sometimes wonder if Bush is sharper and more adroit than he seems in public. The president manages expectations by appearing to be simple, the theory goes, but behind closed doors, a skillful and adept leader emerges.
Alas, Bush’s amiable-dunce act is genuine.