The open-microphone incident at the G-8 lunch in St. Petersburg on Monday illustrated once more that W. never made any effort to adapt. The president has enshrined his immaturity and insularity, turning every environment he inhabits — no matter how decorous or serious — into a comfortable frat house.
No matter what the trappings or the ceremonies require of the leader of the free world, he brings the same DKE bearing and cadences, the same insouciance and smart-alecky attitude, the same simplistic approach — swearing, swaggering, talking to Tony Blair with his mouth full of buttered roll, and giving a startled Angela Merkel an impromptu shoulder rub. He can make even a global summit meeting seem like a kegger.
Catching W. off-guard, the really weird thing is his sense of victimization. He’s strangely resentful about the actual core of his job. Even after the debacles of Iraq and Katrina, he continues to treat the presidency as a colossal interference with his desire to mountain bike and clear brush.
In snippets of overheard conversation, Mr. Bush says he has not bothered to prepare any closing remarks and grouses about having to listen to other world leaders talk too long. What did he think being president was about?
The world may be blowing up, and the president may have a rare opportunity to jaw-jaw about bang-bang with his peers, but that pales in comparison with his burning desire to return to his feather pillow and gym back at the White House.
“Gotta go home,’’ he tells the guy next to him. “Got something to do tonight. Go to the airport, get on the airplane and go home.” A White House spokesman said Mr. Bush had nothing on his schedule after he returned to Washington on Monday about 4 p.m.
When he began meandering about how big Russia was, you expected him to yell, “Yo, Condi!’’ and ask his secretary of state: “Hey, what’s the name of that other big country that has more people than any other country in the world? It begins with a ‘C.’ Dad spent some time there.’’
Perhaps it’s that anti-patrician chip on his shoulder, his rebellion against a family that prized manners and diplomacy above all. But when bored or frustrated, W. reserves the right to be boorish — no matter if the setting is a gilded palace or a Texas gorge.
He treated Tony “As It Were” Blair like the servant in “The Remains of the Day,’’ blowing off his offer to help with the Israel-Lebanon crisis, and changing the subject from substance to fluff at one point, noting about his 60th-birthday Burberry gift: “Thanks for the sweater. Awfully thoughtful of you.’’ Then he razzed the British prime minister, who was hovering and wheedling like an abused wife: “I know you picked it out yourself.”
After doing his best to undermine the U.N. and Kofi Annan, W. talked about the secretary general like a fraternity pledge he wanted to send out for more beer or a keg of Diet Coke: “I felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone with Assad and make something happen.’’
His loosey-goosey confidence that everything could be fixed with a phone call — and not even a phone call made by him, and not even a phone call made to the Iranians, who have more control over Hezbollah — was striking. He seems to have no clue that his own headlong, heedless actions in the Middle East have contributed to the deepening chaos there, and to Iran’s growing influence and America’s diminished leverage.
Mr. Bush may resent the sophistication required of a president. But when the world is going to hell, he should stop chewing and start thinking.
At times, Bush seems not to understand in the least what the presidency is about. He loves the pomp and the ceremony. He loves to be able to bomb any country he wants and order hundreds of thousands of men to invade. He loves the purposeful strides across the White House Lawn with his hand raised in a Hitler salute to the press. After a lifetime of being the Designated Family Shithead, he loves having people mindlessly agree with everything he says because He Is The President. He loves being able to give condescending nicknames to people in the press, to have a cadre of Secret Service agents riding behind him on his bike rides so that he can taunt them that they aren't as fit as he is. He loves to give what amounts to noogies to foreign leaders, to be heedless of what he says and how he behaves because he is the president -- the decider. It's as if the world is his DKE house and he is Eric Stratton.
But he doesn't think he should have to go to class. That's for Dick and Condi and Rummy to handle.
There's something about man-as-moronic-asshole that appeals to Americans. This notion of "he's a guy you'd want to have a beer with" as being a desirable quality in the Leader of the Free World has always baffled me. You are not going to hang out with the president of the United States. Ever. So why is his status as a beer buddy so important? This is an office that requires someone who is interested in world affairs, who can string more than one thought together, and who knows how to conduct himself in public. This president is capable of none of these. What he IS, however, is a TV dad. He's Homer Simpson, he's Everybody Loves Raymond, he's the King of Queens. He's the lovable idiot, the bumbler, the fool. That may be fine on a network sitcom, but as we're seeing, in the Leader of the Free World it's downright terrifying.
This profound stream of anti-intellectualism is nothing new. For all the lip service given to education and learning in this country, the fact is that Americans hate smart people. They chose the affable Dwight Eisenhower over the intellectual Adlai Stevenson. They push their kids into sports rather than chess club, and take more pride when their kid kicks the winning goal than they do when he gets straight A's. Bill Clinton and his gang were ridiculed in the press for eight years for being "wonks", and Al Gore is STILL being ridiculed for the cardinal sin of trying to wake people up to the reality of climate change. The recent report by the U.S. Department of Education which found that there is little difference between the performance of public and private schools and which also showed the mediocre performance of American students in math and science reflect this continued anti-intellectualism.
Even before George W. Bush took office and proceeded to wreck just about everything in the entire world, this country faced many challenges that required curiosity, intelligence, and the ability to think clearly in order to address. Now we are faced with the Middle East in flames, a continued and expanded terrorism threat, a diminishing middle class, skyrocketing fuel prices, and a global warming tipping point -- and not only is there NO leadership from Washington, but far too many Americans are still applauding a president who doesn't know not to talk with his mouth full -- because he is as boorish, incurious, and uncouth as they are.
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