merkel speaks for us all

Well, Dear Leader really showed his true colors at this year's G8 summit.  He's like your drunk uncle at the family barbecue; insulting the neighbors, interrupting conversations, tripping over the pets, until finally he's puking loudly and violently in the yucca plant and calling his new wife a stupid bitch for letting him get too wasted.

First came the roast pig.  And no, unfortunately, that doesn't mean that John Bolton got a sunburn or set himself on fire with his own overheated rhetoric.  It just means that early in the conference, when confronted with a non-softball question about the situation in Israel and Lebanon, Uncle Dubya declared that he'd rather talk about the fact that he gets to carve up the roast pig they're having for dinner.  In the words of Jon Stewart, "There you have it.  Comedy stylings from President George W. Bush.  He'll be playing at the White House in Washington DC for the next two and a half years.  I'm sure it's a 200-drink minimum."  Watch the video here, and pay special attention to the look on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's face.  That's what, in my family, we call "smiling through your teeth", also known as "smiling to keep from screaming".  Oh, Angela!  It's going to get worse for you before it gets, well, even worse.

Then came a little tragedy that I call "Open Mic Night at the Summit", in which Uncle Fucker, not having learned his lesson from that incident where he called New York Times reporter a "major league asshole" while sitting at a live mic, sat chawing away (with his mouth open!) on a buttered roll, talking arrogant smack for ALL THE WORLD TO HEAR while Tony Blair tried in vain to discuss the looming crisis in the ME.  C&L has that video, too.

The thing that strikes me the most about that clip is not the s-word, not his cavalier attitude toward a crisis where hundreds if not thousands of people are suffering and dying, and not his disgusting table manners, but rather his completely fatuous and dismissive body language when speaking to the leader of the only country of import who supported his now-failed invasion of Iraq.  He won't even turn and look at Blair.  If that was your coworker or business partner acting that way at a conference, wouldn't you seriously start thinking about finding another job?  'Course, that might be just what Tony Blair needs to be doing.

The conversation devolved into a discussion of travel-plans, where Preznint Chucklefuck displayed his woeful ignorance of world geography.  Claiming he had "something to do tonight" back in Washington (What, dickweed, ride your bike?  Watch '24'?), he told Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russia's President Putin that he was bailing on this party, dude.

Later, in a confused exchange with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, Mr Bush expressed his amazement that it will take Mr Putin just as long to fly home to Moscow as it will take him to fly back to Washington. Mr Putin's reply could not be heard.

Mr Bush said: "You eight hours? Me too. Russia's a big country and you're a big country. Takes him eight hours to fly home. Russia's big and so is China."

Then there was that other discussion with Vladimir Putin where El Presidente Stupido asserted that Iraq was a model of democracy in action, to which Putin (completely appropriately) responded, "We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have in Iraq, quite honestly."

Ooooooooh, BURN!!  But, you can't say the Bushbot didn't walk right into that one.  He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.  Why should this situation be any different?

The piece de la resistance came, however, when Chimpy interrupted a conversation between Chancellor Merkel and Romano Prodi, the new Italian Prime Minister, to give Merkel a rather ham-fisted impromptu shoulder rub, which clearly not only squicked her out, but also managed to piss her off enough to result in the photo at the top of this post, in which she seems to be giving vent to the same frustration that all Reality-Based Americans currently feel toward this shrugging, mugging, bumbling dickhead we call "Mr. President", i.e., "BACK THE FUCK OFF, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!"

The fabulous Lindsay B. of Majikthise nailed it when she said this:

Every woman will recognize the guy who sidles up and starts "casually" giving you a backrub without even looking at you, because he wants to preserve deniability in case you freak out. Like any practiced groper, Bush stares right past Merkel as she recoils from his touch.

Lindsay calls him a "drive-by harrasser", which couldn't be more apt.  It reminds me of this guitarist I used to have.  He was a good musician, but a social moron.  The norms and mores of normal human interaction were completely beyond him.  We would get into these situations on the road or doing radio station appearances or whatever where he felt totally out of his depth, surrounded by intelligent, classy people, so what did he do?  He would start touching people.  Usually me.  And it was exactly this sort of bullying shoulder-rub that he would employ.  Never mind that he was terrible at it and the feeling of his sweaty hands pinching and squeezing my shoulder muscles made me feel like I had been attacked by two pairs of hot, slightly damp pliers, he was showing everybody in the room that he was IN CHARGE and could touch and fondle other people at will, without asking permission, with no consideration of your feelings in the matter.  It was all about him and his desire to make himself more comfortable, not you.

And of course, just like your shit-heel uncle waking up the day after the barbecue and declaring that it was a GREAT party, you know Resident Bush went back to Washington thinking he really showed those mealy-mouthed furriners who's The Boss, dammit.  Who needs them and their stupid summits anyway?  They can't even speak English, fer god's sake!

Gawd.  Wake me in 2009, somebody.  I don't know how much more of this kind of embarrassment and disgust I can take.  No wonder our image is plummeting all over the globe!  We're being represented and (supposedly) governed by a guy that can't not be a spoiled, childish rube long enough to effectively participate in a meeting of, oh, only the most powerful nations on the planet.  That's just great.  I am SOOOOO proud to be an American that I could just puke on my shoes.  Whooo-hoooo.