Our national embarrassment

This is what you get when you elect a fucking idiot fratboy becomes president.



Is this what restoring dignity to the White House looks like?

Senioritis

Looks like someone can’t sprint to the finish fast enough.

With the NATO summit meetings consistently running two hours over schedule most of the day, President Bush abruptly got up and left the last formal session of the day, not bothering to wait for an official summit photograph of all the leaders.

Bush is no fan of windy meetings and evidently had had his fill. He left behind Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to represent him for the rest of the session, which concerned NATO operations in Afghanistan, but his departure was so sudden and unexpected that he left some of his motorcade behind, inculding his press pool, when he got into his car and headed back to his hotel.

This a day after incurious George tried unsuccessfully to cut short a press conference with Romanian president Traian Basescu, a faux pas that flies in the face of the tradition of allowing the host to determine when the presser is over.

Sprint faster, George! Faster! In fact, if you just want to go ahead and quit now, I think that would be OK with just about everybody in the world.

To the rescue

In case there's any doubt about what the administration's priorities are.

Under the command of President Bush's two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

It orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region, leading up to an extraordinary return visit by Mr. Bush planned for Monday, directed administration officials not to respond to attacks from Democrats on the relief efforts, and sought to move the blame for the slow response to Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White House plan.
...
In interviews, Republicans reflecting the White House line said that the normally nimble White House political operation had fallen short in part because the president and his aides were scattered outside Washington on vacation, leaving no one obviously in charge at a time of great disruption. Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush were in Texas, while Vice President Dick Cheney was at his Wyoming ranch.

It's nice to know that while people are starving and dying, so much effort is being directed toward making sure people don't think badly of the president. But it's gotta be a tough job, making gross incompetence and indifference to human suffering look good.

By the way, how many tragedies have to befall this nation before these people decide that a month away from their jobs is too long?