Easy Answers to Simple Questions

Sandy Levinson askks:

Balkinization: What does a "host" do?

A: Prepare the refreshments.

Sandy Levinson continues:

The Times has just posted a story entitled "Bush to Host Economic Summit." It begins as follows:

Saying that “it is essential that we preserve the foundations of democratic capitalism,” President Bush announced on Saturday that he has agreed to host a summit of world leaders soon to discuss the global response to the financial crisis. “I look forward to hosting this meeting in the near future,” Mr. Bush said at Camp David, where he was meeting on Saturday with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and the European Commission president, José Manual Barroso, who have been pressing for a high-level meeting of this kind before the end of the year.

I confess that I'm intrigued by the term "near future" and the end of the second paragraph about the desirability of a meeting "before the end of the year." It certainly appears that there will no such meeting prior to November 5. And, concomitantly, it appears that the Europeans want a meeting before January 20. So what exactly will constitute George W. Bush's "hosting" duties?

Preparing refreshments.

Will he serve the visitors drinks and introduce them to his sucessor, noting that he (Bush) has become a truly dead duck and should basically be ignored?

Yes, if he is smart.

Or will he purport to negotiate and to "represent" the interests of the US, even if (or perhaps especially if) his successor has decidedly different notions of what those interests are?

Definitely not. The Europeans will not let him.

Will Sarkozy and Brown (and others in attendance) constantly be looking over Bush's shoulder in order to move away and talk with Obama or McCain?

Yes, if they talk to him at all.

Or will they feel a duty to pretend to take Bush seriously?

No.

This has been an edition of easy answers to simple questions.

Comments

[ogmb]

At the end of the Schröder administration, some of the head honchos of the Bush administration made absolutely no bones about their expectation that the Social Democrats would be voted out of office, so they pretty much treated their German counterparts with barely concealed (or not at all concealed) arrogance and impatience. That probably made for some embarrassing moments after the SPD surged in the polls before the election and became the junior partner in the Merkel administration. I'm hoping that Bush gets to learn how it feels to be at the receiving end of such a treatment.

[Ken Houghton]

Without, I hope, the same results.

/block/"Will he serve the visitors drinks and introduce them to his sucessor, noting that he (Bush) has become a truly dead duck and should basically be ignored?"

Yes, if he is smart./block/
Good thing you put that conditional there.

Am I the only one who expects* martial law to be declared in mid-November to "deal with the State of Emergency"?

*"expects" here defined as "would not give 20:1 against" if offered the bet.

[bob mcmanus]

Since Sarkozy is insisting on a meeting this year, my guess is that Sarkozy and the Europeans would like to force some serious humiliation & capitulation on Bush while he is still in office. Sympathetic to Obama, if for instance a dollar devaluation was necessary, the Europeans might prefer that George Bush have it on his record rather than Obama.

I presume that the Obama Campaign would be informed and quietly approving.

This is about the only scenario that makes sense of a meeting with a total lame duck.

[rea]

Pretzels for everyone!

[esb]

Someone just mentioned to me that should "44" turn to "43" on the inaugural platform and assert "our long national nightmare is now at the beginning of its end," 43 would probably stand up and clap, not recognizing the import of the remark (until Dick Cheney whispers it to him).

I guess what I am saying is that GWB just might do well to sneak out of DC quietly and not subject himself to the thinly veiled contempt that such a meeting surely would bring.

I doubt that we will see anything remotely resembling the Bush and Cheney show again in our lifetimes.

And thank God for that.

[jamzo]

why would the euro's want to meet with the leader of the us before the end of the year?

sarkozy's term as euro pres is finished on january 1

more bush cronyism and back scratching

then there is also this

sarkozy and brown must think the summitt plays well in uk and france

euro leaders in washington straightening out the mess the bush and the americans created

[converger]

It's kind of like the repo man deciding to drop by for dinner, the morning before the sheriff arrives to throw you out on the street. He isn't really there to chat. He's there to measure the drapes.

[John Emerson]

Bush just told us what must happen. It's amazing how many ultimatums the malefactors and beggars have managed to come up with. Apparently they don't realize that the world has changed, and that they're not in the driver's seat any more.

I **hope** they're wrong in thinking that way.

[AP]

Why would the repo man measure the drapes?

[Wakboth]

The weirdest thing about Bush lately is how *invisible* he has been. He's still the President of the United States, and in theory at least one of the most influential and powerful world leaders. Yet nobody cares about what, if anything, he does or says.

[bartkid]

>Balkinization: What does a "host" do?
Gets PZ Myers a lot of hate mail.

This has been another edition of missing the point of easy questions.