G. W. Bush - a presidential caricature

The president of the United States, George W. Bush attended a G-8 summit meeting two years ago hosted by the first female chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel.

Ms. Merkel was speaking with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, when the president of the United States, George W. Bush, came up behind her and began to massage her shoulders. You can see the aghast look on her face in the photo above.

It was at this same G-8 summit that Mr. Bush embarrassed the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, by calling out at a meeting, "Yo, Blair!"

Mr. Bush seems to lack a sense of time and place.


This month, another G-8 summit is being held in Japan. Please understand that Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister is reportedly a rather "stiff and shy" figure. Mr. Bush, talking with Nigerian president Umaru Yar'Adua, spotted Mr. Harper and called you, "Yo, Harper!"

Such a gaffe was particularly unfortunate, as Harper's government is criticized rather roundly in Canada for "taking orders from Washington." Some said Bush's calling out, "Yo, Harper!" as did his calling out "Yo, Blair!" two years previously, indicated that Bush felt superior to his Canadian and European counterpart.

Such a conclusion finds further justification in the fact that when Bush and Harper met in the White House in 2006, Bush referred to Harper casually as "Steve." This is not the way to win friends and influence people!


Unfortunately for the United States, the misadventures of George W. Bush in Japan included another chapter. A press kit handed out to the White House press corps that travels with the president included a rather nasty biography of Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

It stated, for example, that Berlusconi was one of the "most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for government corruption and vice."

The biography also stated that Berlusconi entered into Italian politics with no experience, and was able to finance his campaign with his "vast network of media holdings," and promised to "purge the notoriously lackadaisical Italian government of corruption."

However, said the biography, "he [Berlusconi] and his fellow Forza Italia Party leaders soon found themselves accused of the very corruption he had vowed to eradicate."

(One cannot help but wonder if the persons responsible for writing that biography were thinking, not of Berlusconi, but Bush!)


George W. Bush is a caricature of a president. We should be reading about George W. Bush on the comic pages of the daily newspaper, not on the front pages!