He Hu Laughs Last, Laughs Loudest

Blair_turns_offSee Update below–the open mike is not on the Hu side of Bush, it’s on the Putin side. Thanks to EasyRider for checking my work and seeing the funkiness with the video.

Remember those slights Hu Jintao suffered when he visited the United States? The Taiwanese anthem, the Falun Gong protestor? I thought then that might be revenge for the way Bush was made to look like an idiot when he visited Beijing.

Well, you know that video and tape that captured Bush looking like a complete ass today? If you haven’t already, go watch the video. Now, take a look at the WaPo’s extended transcript.

You’ll notice that the order is different, in the video than in the WaPo transcript. For the moment, let’s use the video for placement and the transcript for chronology. The transcript (so, presumably, the accidental taping) starts with Bush being distracted by an aide.

Someone, probably an aide, asks Bush something, evidently whether he wants prepared closing remarks for the end of the summit:

Bush: No. Just gonna make it up. I’m not going to talk too damn long like the rest of them. Some of these guys talk too long.

Then someone who lives in "the neighborhood" yet 8 hours away–the WaPo speculates that it is Hu Jintao–gives Bush a little geography lesson.

The camera is focused elsewhere and it is not clear whom Bush istalking to, but possibly Chinese President Hu Jintao, a guest at thesummit.

Bush : Gotta go home. Got something to dotonight. Go to the airport, get on the airplane and go home. How aboutyou? Where are you going? Home?

Bush : This is your neighborhood. It doesn’t take you long to get home. How long does it take you to get home?

Reply is inaudible.

Bush : "Eight hours? Me too. Russia’s a big country and you’re a big country."

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43 replies
  1. Mimikatz says:

    Wow! These people really are so much smarter and more engaged than we are, and with long memories. Who was it who once said â€The rest of the world is playing chess but the US is bowlingâ€?

  2. Anonymous says:

    I don’t know. The thing I love about this possibility is that Bush fancies himself such a jokester. But he’s an amateur. He doesn’t know how to play for keeps. If this really was Hu, this could have (and is, to a degree) very very embarrassing. Show the whole world what Bush is like? Let them in on his strategies, or lack thereof?

    Geez, I’m glad I toasted to him all those months ago in Beijing, cause I don’t want to get on Hu’s bad side.

  3. Anonymous says:

    After seeing and hearing the video, the first thing was being reminded just how uncouth Bush really is – as is Cheney. But turn the volume down, and what you see is a slob slouching in his chair and stuffing his face while talking with his mouth full. The greatest legacy of the Rehnquist court.

    And the Diet Coke. All that metabolized formaldehyde killing off the brain cells the alcohol didn’t.

  4. emptypockets says:

    One question that comes to mind is, how would Hu know that the microphone turned on just then would catch Bush saying something embarrassing?

    And then the answer comes back: it doesn’t matter when you turn it on — he’s going to say something embarrassing.

  5. Anonymous says:

    To the best of my noise filtering ability, this is what I make of that last exchange:

    Blair: â€Look . . . What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way . . .â€

    Bush: â€Yeah, he’s through.â€

    Blair: â€He’s had it. That’s what this whole thing’s about. It’s the same with Iran.â€

    Assuming that’s an accurate transcript, I take it â€he†is Assad?

  6. kim says:

    Madsen is Wayne Madsen, you’ll find him on Google. Pretty obscure reporting on the NSA, CIA, and related subjects. I like him because he does report on these topics when there is great pressure not to, and little hope of corroboration. Definitely something different. He’s not a Bush supporter, and today’s post is a good example.

  7. 4jkb4ia says:

    Oh, my goodness! This is the sign of someone who has not learned to care what the rest of the world thinks of him.

  8. Jackie says:

    If China did then pay back is a b-tch because Bush tried to make a fool of the Chinese President when he visited the US. The plan played out for the Chinese lady to make insults at the Rose Garden. So I really hope it was done by China and I hope they keep it up. Bush just showed the Red States what born again christian really means and they should do the same. The church has to add that language to the prayer classes. I guess not having values or morals is now the way Bush wants Americans to be. Just remember when your child curses at you he can now say it’s OK the President does it and he’s a born again christian.

  9. baked potato says:

    Entitlement Boy Syndrome. Endemic among priviliged male populations. Eventually controlled in some cases via workplace and/or marital â€reality testing†feedback mechanisms. But can remain a lifelong problem for males whose privilege outranks being tested by realities.

  10. DeanOR says:

    Can anyone clarify what Blair means here:

    Bush : See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it’s over.

    Blair : Who, Syria?

    Bush : Right.

    Blair : I think this is all part of the same thing. What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way, he’s [inaudible ] . That’s what this whole thing’s about. It’s the same with Iran.

  11. DeanOR says:

    just read a washingtonpost.com transcript with commentary that suggests they are both talking about Kofi Annan.

  12. LTJ says:

    I’m sure that many around the world were sympathetic to Bush’s comments about the grueling nature of air travel today. Sure, maybe GWB gets to go to the front of the ticket line (or someone gives him â€cutsâ€). He probably has a certain amount of help with his luggage, and I’ll bet that the U.S. government even springs for 1st Class on special trips (or at least Business Class). And, I’ll bet that afterwards a secretary types up his Expense Report, with carbon copies, etc.

    You say: why typed-up on hard-copy duplicates in this modern age? Well, I hear that W is not overly impressed with the latest Travel Expense software sh**t (….and he has no time to study the manual anyway ;^)

  13. Praedor Atrebates says:

    Jesus F. Christ. That nonsense passes for â€conversation†for Bush? It sounds like Junior High or High School crap banter. What an incredible embarrassment this assclown is. I am soooo ashamed.

    Bush reminds me of the Simpsons character, that Texas rich guy that always yells, â€Yahoo!â€, while firing his six-shooters into the air while doing a little dance. Bush is the uneducated, and proud of it, trailer trash that wins the lottery: a buffoon at the country club otherwise filled with liberally educated intellectuals.

    There’s literally nothing going on inside that mans head. It is a vacuum energy source in there.

  14. carsick says:

    In the first part of the video, with Bush eating the roll while Blair speaks, you can clearly see a red light on Putin’s microphone. Later, it’s off. I’d guess they had recently finished the speaking part and Blair’s job was to go around turning off the mikes. Later, Blair was asked to clean the dishes too.

  15. hibb says:

    Why, Bush is both a yale graduate, and a haavad mba, if ah’m not mistaken. I thunk ivy leaguers had a better command of our noble English language. Remember him and Cheney: w.â€that times reporter sure is an asshole.†c.â€yeh, bigtime asshole.†Now this â€shit†business. And of course, Cheney’s lamentable remark to Sen. Leahy, to go fuck himself.
    Makes a pitiful statement of anyone’s mentality. These remarks hold a nation’s mentality in question. What sort of values can anyone have for family, when all respect for one’s fellow man is laid so low?

  16. eyesopened says:

    I can still remember when one of Bush’s representatives came to Focus on the Family and gave a speech during their morning Chapel for re-election. He talked about how Bush was such a great christian man with unwavering principles and morals. The best part is that they all bought it and prayed together for the man. The American people need to wake up and smell the coffee. How long are we going to be ignorant and let these so-called â€leaders†play their games at our expense.

  17. William Ockham says:

    Hmmm… this is the second accidental open mike incident in Russia this summer that has embarrassed the U.S.

  18. demit says:

    The video has been flopped. The lapel pin is the giveaway here, but one way we always had, in the graphics biz, to tell whether a picture was oriented correctly or if it had been flopped was to check the part in the person’s hair. Bush parts his hair on the left (his left). So someone flopped the portion in which Blair switches off the microphone. Presumably to obscure whose chair it was closest to (Putin’s)?

  19. bugsy says:

    Mr Putin has always been placed at Mr Bush’s left hand side
    at both table seating and podiums where they are standing.
    That’s what I’ve noticed from all unflipped videos.
    The Reuters video first shown on their website of
    the open mike episode showed Mr. Blair standing where
    Mr. Putin had been seated. That is, to Mr. Bush’s left.
    So upon noticing this I left a snarky comment (on I thought
    Crooks & Liars but I can’t find it today) yesterday implying
    Vlad sneakily was getting back at Dubya for the ’Just wait’
    comment — having had enough of Mr know it all etc.
    That was based IMO on the look Putin shot Dubya after
    Dubya said ’Just wait’ in reply to Putin’s remark
    that they certainly didn’t want a democracy like Iraq’s.
    That look said ’Yeah just wait, asshole, just wait.’
    I think Putin did it!

  20. phil says:

    This convinces me more than ever Bush is a great man.
    He just plays stupid and crude to get secret information
    from other world leaders.
    I know cause FoxNews told me so.

  21. bugsy says:

    I watch Reuter’s video news all the time
    because they always sneak ’natural sound’
    unedited clips in between their edited
    clips with the news commentary.
    The drawback is that these clips disappear
    after a few hours once they are edited
    and the commentary added.
    And it is a longish clip with Putin still
    sitting there, his arm on the table right
    in front of the culprit mike. QED. Vlad,
    the impaler.

  22. Anonymous says:

    DeanOR: Your question about what Blair means by that somewhat opaque remark is an important one, which brings up a critical point that is being somewhat lost among the (entirely understable) focus on Bush’s preposterously boorish behavior. What i take Blair to be saying is that Assad, like Ahmedinijad, is worried that the U.S./U.K. effort to remake the Middle East will put him out of business. Thus, Blair is saying that Assad believes he’s finished once there is peace and stability in Lebanon (which actually there wa suntil after the Syrians pulled out), a free and democratic Iraq (to come at some point a Friedman or so down the road), and even more preposterously, a fully resolved solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict (which he apprently believes also is but a Friedman or so away, due to U.S. efforts). If I’m right about this, it means either one of two things: (1) Blair actually believes this shit, in which case he possesses an unfathomable level of self-delusion, or (2) he has outdone himself in terms of sycophancy by pretending that he has fully imbibed the transformation-of-the-Middle-East-through-the-reckless-use-of-military-force-combined-with-disdain-for-actual-diplomacy kool-aid. It is fully as deluded as Bush’s ridiculous belief that Syria could just call off the whole showdown.

  23. Sadie says:

    I don’t think they flipped the video, I think the middle part is filmed in a mirror. You can see the edge of a gold frame (the frame of the mirror) on the right had side of the picture during the part where the camera is showing the whole table (at the 11 second mark), with Bush and Blair in the center, far side next to the flags.

  24. Anonymous says:

    sadie

    Correct, I think it’s a mirror (as EasyRider explained). The whole thing has the feeling of an absurd film from the Czech New Wave.

  25. kim says:

    Pretty damned suspicious that the vid actually was flipped in my opinion, there can only be one reason for that I’d guess.

  26. fireback says:

    I could be that Putin accidentally left it in on and didn’t want to take the blame – although it doesn’t seem likely.

  27. Anonymous says:

    Watching this sequence and the â€German Chancellor Massage†scenario several times, my diagnosis is that President Bush is clearly drunk in both – not just a bit tipsy, the man is drunk. So the headline should read:

    President George W. Bush Sloppy Drunk at the G8 Summit

  28. wise1 says:

    Found this quite fascinating. The last scene with Putin & Bush is from earlier in time, before Putin’s wine & water glasses have been filled. The microphone is OFF at this point, with no red light on the square base and no light around the head of the mic itself. So the mic got turned on either by Putin or one of the serving staff after that initial scene. After that if I understand correctly, the â€eight hours†comment at 0:30 happened, and the red lights are on and Putin is still sitting there but now with wine & water. Then he must’ve gotten up to have a good laugh, and the hilarity ensued.

    Also Blair didn’t notice the mic was on, someone in front of him alerted him to it and he sort of said â€wha-?â€. At the same time the thug behind him was in hot pursuit to turn it off but reversed direction just as he confirmed Blair had gotten it.

  29. wise1 says:

    …just reread that and it sounded a little confusing. This is what I mean… in chronological order we have:

    0:34-0:42 Just sitting down, Bush puts his drool cloth on his lap, chatting up Hu or someone else to his right, no drinks, Putin sitting beside him with microphone off

    0:30-0:33 Still sitting together, wine & water are now poured, mic is now on, Bush marvels at Earth’s vastness, Putin mumbles something resembling â€you’re such an asshat†in Russian

    Then 0:00 to 0:30 are what followed, captured by two cameras, one of which is looking away from them but into a mirror.

  30. Eric says:

    Whatever the â€Prez dint†had to hurry home for it certainly wasn’t to plan the evacuation of Americans from Lebanon.

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