If Bush didn't exist, could you invent him?

The President was being himself today in the presence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Right away you just know that this is going to make you cringe:

PRESIDENT BUSH: I'm now going to go feed the Chancellor a hamburger. (Laughter.) Right here, Crawford, Texas. No, well, I mean back over there. Thank you all.

CHANCELLOR MERKEL: Obviously, for me, as a person who originally came from Hamburg --

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes.

CHANCELLOR MERKEL: -- it's even more important.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Hamburger.

Thank you.

And to think that some people have actually felt the need to explain what went wrong with Bush's presidency.

Of course nobody has remained more blissfully unaware of the Big Parade than George Bush himself. Lately he has taken to insisting in interviews that the invasion of Iraq was Saddam Hussein's fault.

Q But, Mr. President, is it right to say that you have much more a multilateral approach towards the solutions of the problems of the world than you had maybe two years ago?...

PRESIDENT BUSH: I felt I was pretty multilateral the first four years of my administration. After all, I went to the United Nations on the Iraq issue and on the Afghanistan issue, and said, we got a problem; let's work together to solve it. I would like to remind you that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 was unanimously approved by 15 nations, and the declaration was, disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences. And in the case of -- in that case, the tyrant didn't disclose and so he faced serious consequences.

If only Hussein had disclosed that he'd hidden his WMD under Bush's desk, you see, there would not have been any need for war.

And speaking of dictators, Bush revealed that he hasn't bothered to call Pervez Musharraf since he arrested Benazir Bhutto.

Secondly, we share a goal with the Pakistani people, and that is to live in a free society. I haven't spoken to President Musharraf since I did earlier this week, but he knows my position...

A laudable if increasingly remote goal, for both America and for Pakistan.

crossposted from unbossed.com