Bush, private and uncensored, is even more of an embarrassment to the United States then we could ever have imagined. At the G8 summit last week, Bush forgot to turn off his microphone. No, he didn't act like Lieutenant Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun and go use the bathroom with it still on. What he did was much worse. He acted like George W. Bush. As Russian TV filmed shots of the summit, they inadvertently recorded him conversing with other guests, including the Prime Minister of China and poodle Tony Blair. I have written an accurate transcript of the video with my own comments added in brackets. This is not satirical but an actual transcript of the entire video found here. As the recording begins, Bush answers a question about an upcoming speech he will give at the summit.

Bush: I'm just gonna make it up. I'm not gonna talk too damn long like the rest of them. Some of these guys talk too long.

[Then we hear Bush asking the Prime Minister of China about his post-G8 plans]

Bush: How 'bout you? Where you going? Home?

[Prime Minister Hu Jintao's reply is inaudible]

Bush: This is your neighborhood. It don't take you long to go home.

[Bush isn't aware that Beijing is almost 4000 miles from St. Petersburg, Russia]

Bush: Eight hours???

[Bush turns to Russian President Vladimir Putin]

Bush: It takes him eight hours to fly home!

[A waiter attempts to give him a coke]

Bush: No, Diet Coke, Diet Coke....It takes him eight hours to fly home. Eight hours. Russia's big and so is China.

[Bush has just learned some interesting geographical factoids. ENTER Tony Blair]

Bush: Yo, Blair. What are you doing?

Blair: I'm just...

Bush: You leaving?

Blair: No, no. Not yet.

[Blair attempts to talk about a trade issue. This doesn't interest Bush]

Bush: Hey thanks for the sweater! I know you picked it out yourself.

Blair: Absolutely. I knitted it.

[Bush then complains to Blair about UN Secretary Kofi Annan calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah]

Bush: I don't like the sequence of it. His attitude is basically ceasefire and everything is settled. But. Know what I'm saying?

Blair: [stuttering] Yeah. No, I think the-the-the-the-really-the-whole-thing is really is that we can't stop this unless you get this international presence agreed.

[Blair then explains that he wants to go the Mideast immediately to begin negotiating an international troop presence to stop the fighting. Bush interrupts him]

Bush: I think Condi's gonna go pretty soon.

Blair: Right, well, that's, that's all that matters.

[Blair then begs for Bush's permission to go to Israel/Lebanon immediately, before Condi Rice. Bush, with a mouth full of crackers, interrupts him again]

Bush: I told her your offer too.

[Blair, Bush's poodle, seems to realize he has begged his master too much. He goes into submissive mode]

Blair: Well it's only if it's, I mean you know, she's gotta.. Or if she needs the ground prepared, as it were. Because obviously if she goes out she needs to succeed, whereas I can go out and...

[Bush again interrupts his babbling, begging British poodle]

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.

[Bush didn't know that Russia and China were "big" countries, nor does he know the definition of irony, but now he is an expert on the politics of Hezbollah]

Blair: [referring to Syrian President Assad] Look, what does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel/Palestine, if Iraq goes the right way...

Bush: He's through.

Blair: He's had it. And that's what this whole thing is about. It's the same with Iran.

[Blair is saying that Syria and Iran know they will become targets if the other conflicts in the region are resolved]

Bush: I felt like telling Kofi to go get on the phone with Assad and make something happen. We're not blaming Israel. We're not blaming the Lebanese government.

[Blair then sees the microphone is turned on and switches it off]

Eugene Robinson, in the Washington Post, expressed my sentiments on this uncensored sneak-peak of Bush being a "world leader" at the G8, and he offered a good assessment of Bush's response to Israel's latest war. Very rarely do I post other people's writing, but his piece reminded me of a previous post, and he really hits the nail on the head:

As Israel simultaneously bombards Lebanon and Gaza, the Bush Administration has a declared the United States' support for the two-pronged assault and essentially green-lighted a major escalation of war in the Middle East. The vetoing by John Bolton of a UN resolution condemning Israel's assault on Gaza, coupled with Bush's statement about the attack on Lebanon saying "Israel has a right to defend herself", follows closely the policy that allowed the US to be currently digging into Iraq: engaging in a major war by choice, as long as it benefits Israel. Israel's defending herself is actually a response to a border clash and what is being called the "kidnapping" of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza. First of all, soldiers in a conflict get captured, not kidnapped. During Israel's occupations of Gaza, West Bank and Southern Lebanon, Israel has captured tens of thousands of Hamas and Hezbollah fighters who were, in their minds, defending their land from a foreign invader. If these were kidnappings, then all the milk cartons in the occupied territories wouldn't be sufficient to report the missing. The capture of Israeli soldiers is actually a very rare occurrence, and in the past has resulted in prisoner exchanges, which was Hezbollah's and Hamas' plan this month. However, the Israeli response has not been a swap, but rather a full scale war on two fronts resulting in the death of over eighty Lebanese civilians as well as Palestinian civilians including children. While collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza is a typical Israeli tactic, Lebanon, with a pro-US, mostly-Christian and Democratic government, is new to "shock and awe" bombings by the US's favorite ally. The crime that Lebanon committed is not doing enough to disarm the pro-Syria Hezbollah forces who formed in 1982 to fight the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. But how soon Israel forgets the Cedar Revolution of 2005, when hundreds of thousands of Lebanese rose to the streets and demanded the withdrawal of Syrian troops, despite opposition by Hezbollah. Israel is now forcing Beirut back into a bloody civil war between pro and anti-Hezbollah factions like we saw in the 1980s. And the US and Israel are clearly not afraid of an escalation of the conflict to include Iran and Syria. The US National Security Council's official statement sounds as if its coming directly from the Israeli government: "We condemn in the strongest terms Hezbollah's unprovoked attack on Israel and the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers. We also hold Syria and Iran - which directly support Hezbollah - responsible for this attack and for the ensuing violence". The bombing of Lebanon is an unnecessary and disproportionate retaliation for the actions of a group that Lebanon can't control. This provocation is aimed at drawing pro-Hezbollah Syria and Iran into a conflict with Israel and the United States, which happens to be building long-term bases in Iraq right now. With Saddam Hussein out of the way, Iran and Syria remain the last two outposts of opposition to Israeli domination of the Middle East. However, as the invasion of Iraq has been wrought with lives lost, billions of dollars wasted and now an insurgency threatening to keep US troops trapped for decades, following the Israeli road again is a mistake. I think the neocons used to say about the Mid-East peace process that "the road to Jerusalem goes through Baghdad". Yet here we are three years into the occupation of Baghdad and any chance of peace between Palestinians and Israelis is all but gone. I guess maybe they had the wrong map. I'm sure now they'll say the road actually goes through Damascus and Tehran. In any event, Israeli Defense Forces just blew up the actual road the Damascus. So let's not go that way.