Oh man, and this guy is our president. Jeez. He just stood there, after pulling the door, dumbfounded, like a deer in headlights.

When the figurative manifests itself in reality... strange things are afoot.

His malfeasance has locked many global doors.

Oh yes. He stalks off in fear and shame from a simple question, reacts with disbelief when the door doesn't open, and shuts down like a robot when the door just won't give.

And for a split second, he waits for someone to come rescue him because he couldn't get away like he always does. Couldn't escape the nasty real world that insists upon accountability. Couldn't just walk back behind a curtain and be his idiot self without anyone to call him on that.

That split second's blankness said everything there is to say about the vacancy inside. W is deeply disturbed.

Um, to be fair (read: to respect him as a human being although I think he's a moron and disagree with him on every single point), what he actually DID wasn't that bad. I for one have tried to open many a door that were locked, tried both sides, and then stood there pissed and hoping no one saw; the problem was he was on a television, so he had to be even more embarrassed.

What's wonderful about this clip is the symbolism, not that a locked door shows him to be an idiot (because it doesn't). He can't get out. He'd just come from some rhetoric and dogdging that last question hauled at him and is faced by two locked doors and no one to help him, forced to slink behind the curtain and into the annals of history and hated presidents.

Booyah.

His goof on exiting was funny but watching it a second time I didn't laugh - I felt uneasy.

When he was answering that last question, to say he looked uncomfortable would be an understatement. Anyone know the context of what he was talking about before he bolted out of there? He seemed to be giving some stock answer and sweating bullets. What were the questions from reporters that got that kind of reaction?

Bush's gaffes aside, doesn't his behaviour strike you as strange? I feel like we are missing something here. This doesn't seem like Bush's normal uneasiness with the press. He was on the edge there - like he was close to snapping.

And his little joke about trying to escape didn't come off as funny at all because it was so obviously true.

I wonder what is going on.

Lets face it.............we do have a president that's a slow learner.

You know it is funny, however I am just wondering (tinfoil hat on :) that maybe it was staged to make the president to look like an idiot.

He clearly looks uncomfy before the door, but his comment I am trying to escape is probably the truth.

Here's the set-up before he walks off in a huff or a minute-and-a-huff: "Respectfully, sir -- you know we're always respectful -- in your statement this morning with President Hu, you seemed a little off your game, you seemed to hurry through your statement. There was a lack of enthusiasm. Was something bothering you?" he asked.

"Have you ever heard of jet lag?" Bush responded. "Well, good. That answers your question."

The president then recited a list of things of that he viewed as positive developments from his Beijing meetings, including cooperation on North Korean nuclear disarmament and the ability to have "frank discussions" with his Chinese counterpart.

When the reporter asked for "a very quick follow-up," Bush cut him off by thanking the press corps and telling the reporter "No you may not," as he strode toward a set of double doors leading out of the room.

He bitch-slapped the reporter because he got flustered while responding. He is not an adult in his reaction to the spoken word, because his level of expertise with the lingo is...what?....that of the average sixth-grader? It's one thing to have a limited vocabulary. It's another to have limited ideas. And it's still another to behave like a peevish child when you can't talk to people though you just happen to be the president.

Personally, I would like to see a frame from the moment where he froze and stared into the room. I haven't found that one anywhere, but that's the money-shot for matching W's emptiness with his expressions.

You'd think with how much this guy's every moves are monitored by his advisors, someone would have told him before the fact exactly where he had to go to leave the stage. I wonder if he just forgot?

Cut and Run Foo Yong baby:

http://www.macliberals.com/wordpress/?p=358

http://bushcutandrun.ytmnd.com/

And it's already created.

I loathe Bush as much as the next person, but I almost can't help feeling for him here. God knows there's been a million times I've pulled on a door that needed to be pushed or stood in front of doors, thinking they were the automatic type, only to realize they need human effort.

Bush just doesn't recover well from anything that isn't scripted. He never has. And while this is disastrous in a job such as the presidency, as a human, I do feel embarassed for him.

He's also not served well by the room he's in. What a strange design, what a strange background. It's almost disco-esque in it's gaudiness. Those hidden doors are sneaky!

W entered through that strange background, and was doing his cut-and-run act, which he has done so many times in his past. Even in this small, botched exit, there is dead-on poetry that perfectly describes him. He was suffering up on the podium, and he took the coward's way out. It was all too much for him to have to face an uncomfortable question. He got twitchy, bitchy, and fled in relief, forgetting how he even came in the room. I just wonder what was on the other side of the door, and if he might have been even more embarassed to have gotten separated from his backstage crew. He needs his vacation now. Too much stumbling around in places he's never been among people he can't remotely fathom.

While going to the wrong door is an honest enough mistake it was deliciously poetic...

だいじょうぶ　Bushさま。こち　こち。

And if you can read that you get a cookie. Getting serious again though dante you are absolutely right. Bush has been on edge lately and it's almost certainly his abysmal approval rating that's weighing in on his mind. Judging from his past at running companies into the ground I think he's thinking "...I'm doing it again...this can't be happening again!" I'm sure he had dreams of being the star president - one of the most loved and well remembered ones. Maybe not a Lincoln or Kennedy but perhaps a Roosevelt or a Truman in his own way. Well he got part of his wish - he's definitly going to be remembered. Loved though? Not a chance.

Although it could be a quirk of the particular recording or how the sound was mixed, another thing which I found funny (in a schadenfreude kind of way) but also disturbing was the way the press corps audibly laughed at him when the door wouldn't budge. What worries me is considering where this trajectory of ridicule will lead president Mimbo. This is a guy who in his twenties drove up drunk to H.W.'s house and demanded a oedipal dust-up "mano-e-mano". I just hope beneath all incompetency and mendacity which is beneath all the posturing and spin -- beneath it all, I really do hope that Bush finds a loyalty to this country, as Nixon did, to accept his shame rather than just blow it all up.

D'oh!

Bit NOLA: "Personally, I would like to see a frame from the moment where he froze and stared into the room."

BBC news has a classic shot. Shame its so small though.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4454738.stm

You know what would of really been funny was if it was a broom closet and the door was open. Would he go in and hide? :)

I wonder how long it will be until he goes to Crawford again. I got $20 down that it will be within 1 week. Any takers?

Why is it that this is only playing in the international press? Is our media that controlled, that they do not want us to see - Il puppet è perso senza il puppeteer.

Oh sure. Get a life. Find your own way out of the same situation, you bunch of whining ninnies. But again, what else do you have? Intelligent opposing points in a sober debate? Okay, okay, so you don't and you poor old bags have been reduced to pathetic whining. Hey, wait! For some good advice on a constructive opposition platform, maybe you should ask your DNC Chair. What? He's whining too? Well, okay, then. How 'bout calling on Al Gore. You know, Mr. America? Oh, Shucks. Another dry hole.

Guess you don't have anything left (I love the pun) except whining. Go sit in the crying chair.

We' love to engage you in intelligent conversation, and until you regain your composure, you are totally useless.

Boo Hoo doesn't count.

Loren PS don't bother e-mailing me. In your present state of mind you have nothing constructive to say and more of your senseless spouting is just so much more blather. Good Grief.

Lol!

He reminds me of the president in the movie Hot Shots 2 with Charlie Sheen...

A guy with no clue of where he is, or what to do.

When he can't even exit a room properly, how will he be able to get out of Iraq???

I think he was deeply disturbed - for whatever reason - (the environment, all the bad news, medication?) - even before the incident. The key moment is when the reporter asks why he was "off his game" - and Bush quickly asks: "When, now??"

He felt like he was caught, increasing his uneasiness - and then to all this one of the most embarrassing things that can happen.

He was utterly shocked. What is really disturbing is the clown face after he pulls on the door - in the still you see that it is not on purpose (as a joke), but that he really lost control over himself and his face there. Then he just stands there - absolutely frightened. I think fear is the most dominant emotion of him currently.

Loren-

I showed the President sympathy and courtesy in my above post, but I can't do the same for what you've said. I don't see a single person here "whining." What I do see is thoughtful analysis on the President's state of mind and affairs and the perhaps humorous symbolism in his inability to exit in any other way besides slinking to the back.

No one on the left is weeping or whining. We are furious with that shithole that the Bush administration has taken America into and we're finally speaking up and being heard in the media and in Congress (and jubilant at times witnessing the very implosion of the Republican party). If anytime someone speaks up politically, it becomes "whining," what do you call the nonsense the Republicans threw at Clinton about Lewinsky? I think it's only whining if a) what's being said is totally worthless and off-topic, politically or b) there is no suggestion for a solution, merely complaints (and if you actually take a gander at the things most Democrats or Lefties say, instead of ignoring it because it displeases you, there are some pretty great ideas for solutions going around).

Your condescension is deplorable. To suggest that the Right is engaging in anything remotely resembling meaningful or intelligent debate and discussion with its Left counterparts is a ridiculous claim. You yourself have brought nothing to the table besides personal attacks on political leaders. And you tell us to get a life?

It seems, since you are so quick to cover your ears and insist that no one engage you in an exchange of ideas, that you are the one who needs to "regain your composure." That is, if you ever had any to start.

I'll give him the jet-lag man. He may be an idiot but he is human. It cannot be easy to be not only 13 to 14 hours off your schedule but being in meeting non-stop, smiling, shaking hands blah, blah I don't wish that for my worst enemy.

LorenDD -

1. It wasn't the door he entered in from.

2. He had an aide standing just inside the correct door waiting for him.

3. The aide also stepped out to show him where to go while he was blankly staring with a look of fear.

There is other footage of the incident from another angle. So it was quite intresting to see that there is more to it then him trying to open a door.

Bush is great president. He makes me feel like even I could be president too.

Small hint - flying west does not create as serious a jet lag as flying east.

Flying to the (stage) left would damage the ego of any right-winger.

Mr Dubya has the distinct honour of physically manifesting his Iraqi policy for all the world to see: no exit policy, can't even find the door and when questioned "cut and run" seems to be the best action.

I like this quote from Ernest Hemingway: "Never mistake motion for action."

I would have to say Dubya without his handlers is just going through the motions. He is not Super Action Man! :)

Truly proof that he can't formulate even the simplest exit strategy.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v85/jasonrhode/BushinChina.jpg

These photos aren't the one I'd like to see. They are hilarious and sad at the same time. But if anybody can find a shot from just a few seconds later, when he lets go of the door and turns totally toward the room, hands by his side.... that's the shot. He just stands there not knowing what to do, until his aid rescues him.

Bush has lost his ability to escape, a skill he perfected with the Texas Air National Guard.

Although I enjoyed the footage (and metaphor) of the Door Debacle, the more remarkable part of the clip for me was the bit where Bush signs the guest book at the Presbyterian church.

The reporter said that Bush wrote "God bless the Christians of China." Just the Christians, huh? That's some Wondrous God you've got there, George, if He's only looking out for the Chinese who already "know" Him. I know he's not a nuance kind of guy, but our President doesn't have enough diplomatic sense to at least have written "God bless the people of China"?! Sigh.

Because it's become so unfortunately ubiquitous, I've given up on hoping that "God bless America" will disappear from the vocabulary of politicians during my lifetime. But now they're going to start just blessing the Christians? Great.

simon wrote, "BBC news has a classic shot. Shame its so small though."

No Right Turn has a pretty good shot: http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2005/11/no-escape-for-bush.html

THIS MADE MY DAY

Wow, Bush looked really nervous walking past all those Chinese soldiers. The reporters bested him rather quickly it seems. He is off his game.

George W sure hates niggers more than I do!