Hu and the Terrible, Awful, No-Good, Very Bad Day

Check out Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing" column for coverage of Hu's visit - and his very bad day. (It's called "Boo Hu" - very funny; I almost stole it for my post.) In the column Froomkin writes:

The most newsworthy aspect of the day came when Hu was heckled by a woman standing in the press area. She stole center stage from both presidents, shouting: "President Hu! Your days are numbered," and "President Bush! Stop him from killing!"

Dana Milbank writes in The Washington Post: "It took so long to silence her -- a full three minutes -- that Bush aides began to wonder if the Secret Service's strategy was to let her scream herself hoarse. The rattled Chinese president haltingly attempted to continue his speech and television coverage went to split screen.

" 'You're okay,' Bush gently reassured Hu.

"But he wasn't okay, not really. The protocol-obsessed Chinese leader suffered a day full of indignities -- some intentional, others just careless. The visit began with a slight when the official announcer said the band would play the 'national anthem of the Republic of China' -- the official name of Taiwan. It continued when Vice President Cheney donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when Hu, attempting to leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by his jacket. Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the president of the United States tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child."

Adds Milbank: "Then there were the intentional slights. China wanted a formal state visit such as [Hu's predecessor Jiang Zemin] got, but the administration refused, calling it instead an 'official' visit. Bush acquiesced to the 21-gun salute but insisted on a luncheon instead of a formal dinner, in the East Room instead of the State Dining Room. . . .

"The meeting in the Oval Office brought more of the same. In front of the cameras, Bush thanked Hu for his 'frankness' -- diplomatic code for disagreement -- and Hu stood expressionless. The two unexpectedly agreed to take questions from reporters, but Bush grew impatient as Hu gave a long answer about trade, made all the longer by the translation. Bush at one point tapped his foot on the ground. 'It was a very comprehensive answer,' he observed when Hu finished."

Poor Hu. You could almost feel sorry for him...

This might have been really funny if it weren't symptomatic of W's complete inability to do diplomacy even when he wants to. It's one thing when he just decides we don't need to be diplomatic, as with the Europeans and others after 9/11, when a half-witted child could have exploited the world's sympathy and instead we ended up hated by virtually everyone. It's another when he tries to talk to someone about something, and can't manage it.

And by the way - what is it with Cheney and his dress sense? Remember him at the ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz?