Bush Humiliates the USA…Again

Posted by BooMan | Sep 7, 2007 | 15 |

New Rules, the president shall not be allowed to travel abroad.

The “Language Mangler-in-Chief” was in Australia attending the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit. Along with misidentifying his host country and the name of the summit, Bush struggled to leave the lectern, trying to exit the stage the wrong way.

“Thank you for being such a fine host of the OPEC summit,” Bush said to Australian prime minister John Howard. He quickly corrected himself, “APEC summit,” and joked Howard “invited me to the OPEC summit next year. (Such an invitation would be impossible because neither the US or Australia are members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.)

Later in the speech, Bush can clearly be heard on tape thanking Howard for visiting “Austrian troops” in Iraq last year, but White House scrubbers fixed that gaffe for him, changing the official government transcript to “Australian,” the Associated Press reported.

Then he tried to leave through the wrong door…again.

It’s football season. Someone give this man a couch, a remote control, a six-pack of non-alcoholic beer, and a bag of pretzels. And don’t let him leave the house.

About The Author

BooMan

Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.

15 Comments

quake on September 7, 2007 at 11:29 am

Bush’s gaffe made the TV news in Japan this afternoon. It was correctly reported as his having made two dumb errors (OPEC and Austria).

This doesn’t instantly irreparably damage US standing in the region, but this kind of steady drip of gaffes isn’t helping either.
- BooMan on September 7, 2007 at 11:34 am
  
  it just makes us all look stupid…for electing the fool.
michaelmt on September 7, 2007 at 11:50 am

I truly think you are wrong. The changes in Bush’s behavior of late have really looked like a serious return to the real stuff–and probably not just beer. Take a look at the patterns of speech. Now, he’s never been eloquent. (Go ahead, laugh.) But what he’s done in the last few months has been remarkably incompetent, even for him.

I wonder how tight a hold Rove had on him, and if perhaps they finally gave up on the possibility of controlling his behavior. That “We’re kicking ass…” comment was bonkers even for Bush. It smacks of a bunch of handlers talking down to an immature kid.
- CabinGirl on September 7, 2007 at 11:57 am
  
  That was my first thought: the guy is medicated AND hitting the booze.
  - chocolate ink on September 7, 2007 at 4:38 pm
    
    I’m guessing that’s true and I also doubt bush does any real prep work for these meetings..he thinks he can just wing it on his supposed charm and personality. He’s like the bull in the china shop.
Number 6 on September 7, 2007 at 11:53 am

He strode away from the lectern on a path that would have sent him over a steep drop.

Should have let him keep walking.
MikeInOhio on September 7, 2007 at 12:58 pm

Hu Jintao, China’s president, stole the limelight at the gathering of Pacific Rim leaders in Sydney on Thursday, upstaging George W. Bush with a flurry of political and trade initiatives designed to woo regional powers….

The Chinese leader was the first foreign leader to arrive in Australia for the meeting, visiting resource-rich Western Australia, the capital Canberra and a sheep farm before arriving in Sydney with a large state business entourage.

Mr Bush, by contrast, will leave the summit meeting of 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation leaders a day early to return to Washington to deal with Iraq.

Mr Hu’s high profile in Sydney is a replay of regional meetings in Asia in recent years, in which a growing and activist China has overshadowed a U.S. distracted by the Middle East.

The Financial Times goes on to report that Bush “bristled” when reporters suggested that China was dominating the summit.

And the capper for our illiterate President

Consider, for example, the up-and-coming leader of Australia’s Labor Party, Kevin Rudd. Once thought to be too bright to succeed in Australian politics (his fellow politicians used to call him, unflatteringly, “Harry Potter”), Rudd is fluent in Mandarin and majored in Chinese history while an undergraduate at Australian National University. The Sydney Morning Herald reports, somewhat gushingly, that Rudd flabbergasted all in attendance at a state lunch this week when he welcomed Hu Jintao to Australia with several minutes of “flawless” Mandarin — “a stunning piece of linguistic one-upmanship.”

There was an almost audible intake of breath among the scores of Chinese political and business heavyweights in the audience.

Many sat bolt upright in their chairs, beaming at Mr Rudd’s virtuosity.

The effect could not have been greater had the family’s precocious nine-year-old played a Chopin prelude perfectly for the visiting relatives after Christmas lunch.

But it worked so well because Mr Rudd was not acting like a show-off.

He spoke at length in English first, displaying a commanding grasp of China’s history and development into an economic giant, before seeking his audience’s indulgence to welcome Mr Hu personally in Chinese.

And our President can’t even speak his own language.
- dksbook on September 7, 2007 at 1:16 pm
  
  It would be a major undertaking to elect a President in this country who could speak even Spanish fluently. And Bush cannot speak English, let alone the Spanish the Mighty Wurlitzer tried to tell us he could speak. Can’t you just see the shit that would go down if a Dem candidate owned up to speaking any other language, let alone, well – French?
  
  Baby dks is studying languages at a slightly over-rated eastern Ivy. He studies French, Pulaar, Portuguese. I tell him that makes him completely unelectable in this country.
  
  We evidently want presidents as uneducated as we ourselves are. Godde help us.
  - MikeInOhio on September 7, 2007 at 1:53 pm
    
    Can’t you just see the shit that would go down if a Dem candidate owned up to speaking any other language, let alone, well – French?
    
    Oh…….you mean like this.
michaelmt on September 7, 2007 at 3:05 pm

It goes on and on. Read the headlines on HuffPo. He didn’t know what OPEC was (or forgot)…first confused it with APEC, then said that Howard had invited him to an OPEC meeting (fat chance.) He almost walked off the stage. He is in very bad shape.

I’m beginning to feel I’m right. Rove and Snow didn’t leave because of their own problems, but because they ceased to have confidence they could handle his.
chocolate ink on September 7, 2007 at 4:51 pm

I wonder just how many people bush can piss off while he’s there. Now there are reports he had a ‘testy’ exchange with South Korean President regarding Korean War.

The really bad news is that I just read that in ’08 bush is going to spend much more time on foreign travel, that he’s going to be a real globetrotter. Heaven help us, I’m already shuddering to think what kind of stupidity will come out of that if not some actual international incidents due to him. I’m also wondering why in his last year as a lame duck he all of a sudden decided to spend ’08 traveling, what’s the point?
- dada on September 7, 2007 at 6:04 pm
  
  he’s got to get his travelin’ done before jan 09….while he still has a small army to protect him, ci.
  
  after he leaves office, l’d venture travel outside the confines of the lower 48 is going to be non-existant…for obvious reasons.
  
  lTMF’sA
Second Nature on September 7, 2007 at 4:54 pm

what a nincompoop.
michael72 on September 7, 2007 at 7:04 pm

are ya’ll sure he hasn’t been tipping a few at the prancing pony between meetings?

OMG can it get any worse for the language as a head of state? the Liar in Chief lies so much, as a habit, he can’t keep any facts straight.

“It’s football season. Someone give this man a couch, a remote control, a six-pack of non-alcoholic beer, and a bag of pretzels. And don’t let him leave the house.”

bwaaaaaahahahaha!!!
he’ll be home alone
ask on September 7, 2007 at 7:49 pm

He then goes on to Korea and a testy exchange with the South Korean President:

[…]

Mr Roh leaned across and urged the president to be more explicit about the security arrangement.

“I might be wrong. I think I did not hear President Bush mention a declaration to end the Korean war just now,” Mr Roh said through an interpreter. “Did you say that, President Bush?” Mr Bush replied it was “up to Kim Jong-il”.

The South Korean leader remained unconvinced. “If you could be a little clearer,” he said.

A clearly irritated Mr Bush said that he had in mind a formal peace treaty that would end hostilities in the war, which ended with the US still technically at war with the North.

[…]

Bush Humiliates the USA…Again

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