German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Bush at the White House and oh dear God he’s still talking about the roasted pig she served six months ago: “And Laura and I are looking forward to feeding you dinner. I’m not so sure it’s going to be as good a dinner as the barbecue you fed us -- (laughter) -- but we’ll try.”
On global warming, he said we should “put behind us the old, stale debates of the past... Here in the United States, we’re going full-steam ahead with new technologies that will change the way we drive our cars”. A Stanley Steamer in every garage!
He says that on Iraq, “my thinking is taking shape.” Pear shaped? Circular, as in, rounding around in circles? “One thing is for certain, I will want to make sure that the mission is clear and specific and can be accomplished.” What, you mean the Mission wasn’t Accomplished? Flight suit, sock, aircraft carrier, banner, does any of this ring a bell, Georgie?
He says that he spoke on the phone with Maliki for two hours today. “I talked about a lot of topics with him. One thing I was looking for was will -- to determine whether or not he has the will necessary to do the hard work to protect his people. And I told him, I said that, you show the will, we will help you.” The frightening thing is that that’s probably really what he said. “I believe Prime Minister Maliki has the will necessary to make the tough decisions. That’s one of the things I learned today.”
In fact, George is the Johnny Appleseed of condescension, scattering scoldings wherever he goes: “Syria knows exactly what she needs to do in order to reenter the nation -- reenter the -- you know, to be viewed as a nation that’s constructive. ... So my attitude on Syria is they can be a much more constructive partner and they haven’t been. They don’t need to be told that in meeting after meeting after meeting. They get told that right here in a press conference like this. They know exactly what they need to do. And it’s their choice to make.”
He says that he wished the “proceedings,” by which he meant Saddam Hussein’s hanging, “had been done in a more dignified way.” Because George would never mock someone about to be executed...
He says, “The Iraqi people want to move forward, they want to forget that terrible part of their past”. Because if there’s one thing about the Iraqis, it’s that they don’t hold grudges for things that happened in the past.
And then he mentioned the back rub thing, a terrible part of Merkel’s past that she no doubt wants to forget as well.
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