What an embarassment.
Here’s your President, caught unaware that he was miked, talking to some world leaders. First, chomping with his mouth full on a dinner roll, he responds to Blair’s proposition about sending international peacekeepers to quell the situation in Israel and Lebanon:
"See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over."
How Churchillian. And of course, another Bush quote for the ages — here’s Bush talking to a staffer about his speech at the G8:
"I’m just going to make it up as I go along. Some of these guys talk too long."
And Bush also demonstrates his mastery of the obvious — in a conversation with Russian Premier Putin about their flights home:
"You eight hours? Me too. Russia’s a big country and you’re a big country. Takes him eight hours to fly home. Not Coke, diet Coke. … Russia’s big and so is China. Yo Blair, what’re you doing? Are you leaving?"
Story and audio clips here. BBC has the unbleeped video.
No doubt, many Bush supporters will praise Bush’s substantively empty tough talk. On that point, Tbogg is right:
[W]e’re in the mess we’re in because we need to do better than Earl from down at the garage who thinks that fixing the Middle East is as simple as gettin’ folks to stop doin’ that "shit".
Firedoglake has more thoughts on the Bush embarassment.
UPDATE: More from Arianna Huffington:
Yes, on one level, it’s great comedy — as funny as anything SNL or The Onion could come up with. "Yo, Blair!"? Bush’s kindergarten insight that "Russia’s big and so is China". The dripping with sarcasm frat-boy banter:
Bush: Thanks for the sweater; it was awfully thoughtful of you. I know you picked it out yourself.
Blair: Oh, absolutely!
What was next, the two of them high-fiving and yelling "Psyche!"?
But on another level, the conversation was the most dispiriting exchange I could imagine hearing at a moment like this.
Has there ever been a more feeble statement by a U.S. president than "See, the irony is what they really need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over"?
Churchill it ain’t.
Indeed, it says all you need to know about how this president’s disastrous mismanagement of foreign policy has undermined America’s standing in the world.
The Middle East is teetering on the brink, and the President of the United States is reduced to sitting on the sidelines, helplessly ruminating on what "they" need to do to try and broker a settlement.
Other thoughts are on the media obsession with the profane language, rather than more telling issues:
Indeed, Bush’s unplugged moment today included some of the most surprisingly newsworthy remarks from the president in a very long time. We got a glimpse into how the British Prime Minister is pressing Bush on the Middle East. We heard a little about how the president would like to see the crisis resolved. We learned that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might be traveling to the region, presumably to apply diplomatic pressure and invest the U.S. in the crisis. And for those interested in Bush’s persona, we learned that Bush is perhaps even more unsophisticated and clumsy in private than his fiercest critics had feared.
But the real media interest thus far has been in Bush’s use of a "bad word." As Ezra concluded, "This is your press corps."
IN OTHER BUSH-RELATED NEWS: A former Bush official kills his autistic son and himself.
One year ago, a guy named Kyle McDonald set out to get buy a house . . . with only one red paperclip.
