Maureen Dowd: Animal House Summit

[gristy]

Dowd covers Bush's carrying-on at the G-8 summit:

Reporters who covered W.’s 2000 campaign often wondered whether the Bush scion would give up acting the fool if he got to be the king.

Would he stop playing peekaboo with his pre-meal moist towels during airplane interviews? Would he quit scrunching up his face and wiggling his eyebrows at memorial services? Would he replace levity and inanity with gravity?
<snip>

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.

more...

www.select.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/opinion/19dowd.html

[babylonsister]

1. Disclaimer: you cannot read the article yet. But thanks, gristy. nt

[Demeter]

2. Excellent Diatribe at A Horrible Man

well worth reading.

[rodeodance]

3. "his immaturity"---yes, I think Dowd hit upon the Right word for Bush!

[diddlysquat]

4. This link has it all:

http://newsgazettewatch.blogspot.com/2006/07/animal-house-summit.html