Moment of honesty. An unexpected bit of skeptical reporting today from Elisabeth Bumiller, on the occasion of Bush's speech in Brussels:

White House officials had promoted the speech as a major embrace of European unity, and had released excerpts on Sunday night suggesting that the president would extensively support the idea of the 25-member European Union as a partner rather as a rival to the United States.

But he did not devote more than a few sentences to those ideas, and cast his support for a new European unity in the context of his goal of advancing liberty.

"Bush Says Russia Must Make Good on Democracy"

Ah, but that bow in the direction of reality comes after the jump, 14 paragraphs (about halfway) in to a piece that begins by situating the speech in the approved faith-based manner:

The president's words opened his first trip across the Atlantic since his re-election and were part of a speech aimed at building a new relationship with Europe after the dispute over the American-led invasion of Iraq. Mr. Bush's 31-minute speech  ... declared that in a "new era of trans-Atlantic unity," the United States and Europe must work together ...

BushWorld, where you only have to say it to make it so.

It's nice, I guess, that Bumiller feels she can allow herself a moment of honesty—and interesting that she has no apparent sense of self-contradiction to be embarrassed by. Then again, honest reporting, in the practice of courtier journalists like Bumiller, isn't especially salient anyway: it's an incidental, a grace note, something to be sounded after one's debt to the official line of horseshit (Watershed Presidential Speech, in this installment) has been paid, a nod to the cognoscenti willing to persist through the report past the point where the rubes have broken off and taken themselves to the sports pages.

Speaking of incidentals, happily Lizzy Boo doesn't neglect this little moment of unadulterated Bushian weirdness:

In the evening, the president had a small dinner for his old nemesis, President Jacques Chirac of France, and appeared comfortable next to the man who had infuriated him by aggressively opposing the invasion of Iraq. But when a French reporter asked Mr. Bush if relations had improved enough for him to ask Mr. Chirac to his ranch, the president did not offer an invitation, and instead joked, "I'm looking for a good cowboy."

Looking for a good cowboy? Is Dear Leader in mourning over his lost mandate?

posted by michael  11:16:49 AM  
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