The Middle East is exploding and what is President Bush doing about it? Not much.
Here's the transcript of this morning's joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in which Bush sounded more like a bystander on the world stage than the leader of its only superpower.
Other than definitively supporting Israel's right to defend itself, Bush was more timid and wishful than assertive. He spoke in unusually deferential terms about collaborating with other world leaders and pretty much ruled out military action against Iran. His comments about the current situation in Israel
suggested a highly unrealistic notion of how well things were going there up until now, and a naiveté about the effect Israel's actions may have on Lebanon's embryonic democratic government.
Stopping off in Germany on his way to the G-8 summit in Russia,
Bush reserved his greatest enthusiasm for tonight's pig roast -- technically, a wild-boar barbecue -- bringing it up three times. "I'm looking forward to that pig tonight," he gushed.Describing the message he expects his fellow summiteers to deliver to Iran on abandoning its nuclear weapons program
Bush said, almost whining: "We're not kidding."http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/07/13/BL2006071300903_pf.html