On the balls

In her Saturday New York Times column, Maureen Dowd writes:

“Until we have a clear strategy, we’re not going to have a clear exit strategy,” [President Obama] told Jim Lehrer on Friday about Afghanistan, noting that he had ordered a “head-to-toe, soup-to-nuts” review of the mission there....

I think that's a difference between Obama and his predecessor in the White House. W just wanted his review of the situation there to be head-to-nuts.

Hey, over here!

There's a New York Times article today reporting that the leaders of the G8 countries "endorsed... the idea" of cutting carbon emissions in half - by 2050. By which time approximately all of these guys will be dead. Cool how they managed not to actually commit to anything - they just like the idea. Way to be aggressive, kids.

Anyway, the article is illustrated with a class portrait, in which all of your assorted presidents and prime ministers (can a brother get a chancellor?) are looking forward, one guesses, toward where most of the press photographers are. Well, all of them were looking forward except for one. Which world leader was facing a totally different direction? I'll give you one guess - and no, it wasn't Sarkozy.

Well, here, see for yourself:

Iraq so far away

Heard a very interesting talk last night by Richard Engel, NBC News' chief foreign correspondent. He was in town promoting his new book, War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq, and I guess he did it successfully -- I picked up a copy for my own self.

He's the reporter whose recent interview with W. included a question about the possible implications of appeasement toward Iran. When the edited piece aired, the White House was, eh, a little touchy about it. (A little ironic when the Bush White House feels compelled to issue a news release with "Setting the Record Straight" in the header.) The Bushies, as you may have read, said it was "deceptively edited" even though, as Engel pointed out last night, the entire interview was posted online from the get-go (and still is), which would kind of negate NBC's evil plan to deceive the American public.

Engel says that the conflict in Iraq has actually been five wars, each with a very different dynamic defined by the combatants and what's at issue.

One of the most interesting tidbits was his recounting of his recent private one-on-one with W. Engel was summoned to the White House, but wasn't told who he'd be meeting with until he arrived. With no cameras running, Engel says he found Bush to be very well "read in" on all of the details of what's going on over there -- he clearly knew the names, players, events and places (apparently without benefit of cue cards) -- and the president we assume to have a teeny weeny attention span was really engaged throughout the 90-minute discussion.

Still, Engel said, he came away thinking Bush doesn't quite understand how to deal with Arab people -- how to approach them, how to negotiate in their style. That seems about right. Although you'd think maybe an advisor could give him a few pointers. And, while they're at it, tell him how to pronounce "nuclear" properly.

Engel, by the way, has been in the Middle East since shortly after getting his bachelor's degree from Stanford in '96. He went there on his own, set himself up as a freelance reporter, and has been there covering the entire mess ever since. Hm. After I graduated from college, I went to j-school to learn how to write about village board meetings. Well, almost the same thing.

Man, I am SO tanked!

Say what you will about all of W.'s malapropisms during his seven-year reign of stupid, but at least he generally sounded... sober.

Now, when you hear the crap come out of his mouth, don't you get the impression our prez is like the guy at the party who's had three extra Milwaukee's Bests and stayed about two hours too long?

There was the time in September when he was in Australia --that's the big island with the kangaroos and stuff -- speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation -- that's APEC. A-P-E-C -- and referred to the event as "OPEC." And then topped that by telling everyone how nice the "Austrian" people had been during his trip.

But I swear it's gotten sillier.

Last week -- and this is very timely, since the World Series was four months ago -- he honored members of the world champion Boston Red Sox at the White House. If you'd like to be wowed and amazed by his verbal strategery, the transcript of the whole hellacious speech is here.

Among his gems was his shout-out for the Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, who is from Japan and therefore handles his interviews through translators (something the president probably should have considered about seven years ago). And W said: "Red Sox Nation extends beyond the South Lawn, extends beyond New England -- it obviously goes to the Caribbean and even the Far East. So we welcome Japan's Daisuke here to the South Lawn. His press corps is bigger than mine. And we both have trouble answering questions in English. "

Yeah.

Of course you grew up in the United States, where English is taught in many schools, before going to Yale, where -- I'm told -- most classes are taught in English. And Matsuzaka is, well, a baseball player who, until last year... how do I put this?... lived in Japan.

The drunk-dude patois continued when he alluded to slugger Manny Ramirez, who quite sensibly, I think, decided to skip the ceremony. Quick backstory for you: Ramirez had also ditched the White House ceremony after the Sox' victory in 2005; his excuse then was that had to visit his sick grandmother. So W offered this: "I'm sorry... Manny Ramirez isn't here. I guess his grandmother died again. Just kidding. Tell Manny I didn't mean it."

Ah, the dead grandmother jokes. Nice.

Incredibly, White House staff left the microphone turned on for the rest of the ceremony. No mention in the transcript of whether his next words were, "I just love you, Manny. Don't hate me. Wow, I am really lit! Manny, you're my bud!"