Bush on the World Stage: While Events Heat Up, the President Hams it Up

READ MORE: Iraq, 2006, Afghanistan, Israel, George W. Bush

I picked the wrong week to spend more time than usual on the treadmill, flipping channels from one horrific occurrence to another and another and another. And, in between, watching snippets of our president looking lost on the world stage.

As the significance of the play of current events has increased, the stature of the lead actor seems more dwarfish then ever.

So it wasn't the intensity of my workout but our president in stark relief with the magnitude of world events that made me sweat.

There he was at his press conference in Russia, where he unwittingly gave Vladamir Putin one of the great set-up lines in recent history. Responding to a question about his concerns over the state of Russia's democracy, Bush said he had talked to Putin "about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same thing."

To which Putin replied: "We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly."

Ouch. After that one, Bush may have to change his nickname for Putin from "Pootie-Poot" to "Vlad the Presidential Impaler."

Bush reacted to Putin's spot-on zinger like a petulant third-grader, saying "Just wait." Somehow he resisted the urge to stick out his tongue and say, "Wanna bet a million-zillion dollars on that, Pootie-Poot?">>>cont

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