8/10/2008

President Bush Wanders Onto NBC Set


George W. Bush was interviewed live on NBC by Bob Costas just a few hours ago. A short but wide-ranging interview, the President covered China's human rights record ("America better remain engaged"), China and religion ("once religion takes hold in a society it can't be stopped"), Georgia ("I was very firm with Vladimir Putin"), Sudan ("Joey Cheek has just got to know that I took the Sudanese message [to the Chinese government] for him"), and doping in sports.

The interview was enormously casual--to Costas's question if Hu Jintao was "receptive" to Bush's message on Sudan, Bush responded "It's hard to tell."

For a full transcript, see here, or watch below.



It's unclear from the interview whether Bush ever did his assigned reading, but we're guessing not.

5 comments:

Robert said...

All I can think watching that is right message, wrong person. While I don't think that we as a country have lost all credibility when pushing for human rights and freedoms, our president no longer has any.

This is coming from someone who once voted for him, and as someone living in Asia trying to advocate the very things the President just talked about. Many Chinese have caught on that the most effective rebuttal to claims of human rights abuses is, "You deal with the hundreds of untried prisoners in Guantanamo and secret prisons around the world, you deal with your government's warrantless wiretapping, and you deal with your escapades in Iraq, then you come talk to me from your high horse.

I'm still young, which is to say things might not be as different now as they seem. Yet, it's my impression that Bush has done a spectacular job of making the jobs of those who want to make the world a better, safer place much much more difficult.

Robert
The Only Redhead in Taiwan

Jonathan Dresner said...

The video appears to have been removed from youtube.... Either that or it's so popular I can't get through.

JacklynD said...

Am I the only one who thinks our president is certifiably insane?George Bush is crazy and probably has been for quite some time. Seriously, I mean that literally.

His interview with Bob Costas made my skin crawl. Her religious fervor and intensity when he spoke about telling China they shouldn't be afraid of religion was... totally inappropriate and whacko.

I can't believe that we have allowed this imbecile to operate for so long. His cabinet should be prosecuted for covering up his insanity.

Unknown said...

What's the deal with NBC and Costas getting lame duck Bush and his religious comments on it's Olympics programming? The interview left me with the impression of "what is wrong with this picture?" It was like watching a second stringer from the bench standing in for a star player. Ok, will the real President please stand up and remove this imposter from the set? It's ironic that with such a dismal foreign policy record Bush should be seen and heard at such an epic international event. NBC has shown viewers the Olympics are a political platform in the name of sports.

Matt said...

Well, I for one feel that Bush is always most tolerable when he is speaking about China...Also, I like how they positioned his head right next to the big portrait of Chairman Mao :-)