Sunday, December 23, 2007
Opinion, Stephanie Ramage
Bush’s foreign flirtation
Last week, President George W. Bush openly flirted with a foreign
reporter...
By Stephanie Ramage
Last week, President George W. Bush openly flirted with a foreign reporter during a regularly-scheduled press conference. “W.” being flirtatious is nothing new. The man is a flirtbomb. But how he mounted the flirtation on the horns of the Syrian diplomatic dilemma was problematic. Here’s how it went down:
From the shoulder-to-shoulder audience of male reporters of both genders came a sweetly feminine voice thoroughly tricked out in a fruity French accent—with the kind of va-va-va-voom “w”s and back-of-the-throat “r”s that put the “French” in “French kiss.” I don’t know who she was, and indeed she may have been Arabic, since lots of Arab reporters learn to speak English in French-run schools, but her diction lacked the gravitas that an underpinning of Arabic usually lends any language. Her accent was as frothy as a $4 espresso drink.
“Sahkosie,” she said, referring to, of course, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, “eez at zee ehnd of heez patience vit Assad.” (“Is at the end of his patience with Syrian President Assad.”)
I would like to point out that Bush—looking pale and drawn—had been audibly short of breath throughout the press conference, so perhaps his slight panting was not related to Madame Pompadour du Presse when he replied “My patience ran out on President Assad a long time ago.”
By God, that should show the world we’re still more impatient than the French, damn it. Try to outdo us at our Yosemite Sam shtick and we’ll … invite your reporter to go to the Middle East with us.
“I am going to the Middle East and I hope that you’ll go with me,” our Swashbuckler-in-Chief said. The reporter giggled—maybe it was a laugh, but it smacked of giggling—and said she would. He went on to say that Syria has to get out of Lebanon, asap.
Needless to say, our Secretary of State couldn’t have been pleased, particularly since it was only last month that her diplomatic work resulted in the Syrians actually attending the Middle East peace conference in Annapolis. But American presidents will be American presidents. No metrosexual will be elected to the White House unless he’s a woman. In the meantime, Bush did offer a few genuine nuggets of interest:
He lauded federal support for efforts to transform wood chips and switchgrass into biofuel—efforts that are in full swing at Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia.
He adamantly said any serious attempt to control greenhouse gas emissions has to include support for nuclear power.
In response to a question about whether it’s worrisome that foreigners—like the Arabs who bought a chunk of Citigroup a couple of weeks ago—are investing in our banks, he said, “No, I like to get our money back.”
And he sounded bankerly himself, in a bad way, when he talked about the federal initiative to help “credit-worthy” Americans who have been hurt by the mortgage crisis. I would imagine that being foreclosed on would probably render one less-than-credit-worthy. His speechwriter should know that.
SPStephanie Ramage is news editor of The Sunday Paper.