Continuing with comments on Bush's statement about Iraq's "imminent" threat: It's hard to say what the longer-term consequences of this may be. Once again, it kicks his friend and best ally in Europe, Tony Blair, right in the teeth. His callousness and carelessness toward the fate of Blair is one of the strangest and also most disturbing aspects of Bush's Presidency.
And the same day Bush was giving Russert this interview, his Defense Secretary was in Munich at the annual NATO Security Conference, insulting and antagonizing our NATO partners.
And Bush came off as either clueless or indifferent, or possibly deliberately sneering, toward the end of the interview when Russert asked him about his unpopularity in Europe:
Russert: Why do people hold you with such contempt
President Bush: Heck, I don't know, Ronald Reagan was unpopular in Europe when he was President, according to Jose Maria Aznar. And I said, ‘You know something? ‘
He said to me, he said, ‘You're nearly as unpopular as Ronald Reagan was.’ I said, ‘so, first of all, I'm keeping pretty good company.’
I think that people when you do hard things, when you ask hard things of people, it can create tensions. And I heck, I don't know why people do it. I'll tell you, though, I'm not going to change, see? I'm not trying to accommodate I won't change my philosophy or my point of view. I believe I owe it to the American people to say what I'm going to do and do it, and to speak as clearly as I can, try to articulate as best I can why I make decisions I make, but I'm not going to change because of polls. That's just not my nature.
Russert: Two polls out this weekend show you --
President Bush: See there, you're quoting polls.
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