Bush Fumbles the Ball at G8

Attempts at Texas Sweet Talk Flop

Mike Allen / Washington Post 22jul01

Genoa, Italy -- Just before a 40-minute meeting with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder yesterday afternoon, President Bush told reporters they would discuss U.S. plans for alleviating global warming and have "a very honest and open dialogue" about arms control.

But when Bush got behind closed doors, global warming never came up, and the two leaders had no substantive discussion about the missile defense system that Bush wants to build, according to a senior administration official.

The omission was a small glimpse of what European diplomats and U.S. officials described yesterday as Bush's attempt to bring his own brand of Texas sweet talk to the world stage at this weekend's Group of Eight meeting of industrial nations.

Bush aides say he likes to focus on guiding principles, not specifics. Summit participants said he carried that approach to a series of meetings with world leaders, preferring to focus on common ground and trying to win them over with personality rather than mastery of issues.

While the meetings were private, the picture-taking sessions in Genoa often found Bush playing a familiar role, emphasizing his upbeat nature. On the opening day of the summit, he winked, he patted backs, he mugged.

In describing the meetings, other world leaders and their aides often remarked on how friendly Bush seemed, but could not point to an issue on which he had changed anyone's mind.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was encouraged by Bush's comments about his desire to reduce greenhouse gases but was left unsure of what type of a climate-control agreement Bush would accept, a Koizumi aide said.

William Antholis, a G-8 coordinator under President Bill Clinton who now is director of studies at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said Clinton also was charming but won his arguments on global warming by mustering scientific and technical detail. "If George Bush gets really serious about negotiating a deal on climate change, he will have to know the substantive details," Antholis said. "Most of the rest of these leaders have been dealing with this issue for at least five years."

An Italian official who had read minutes of several G-8 sessions said of Bush, "A lot of what he says is along the lines, 'OK, look, here I can't go along, but I can do something there.' "

The official also said he was surprised to stick his head into the meeting room and "very often" see Bush chatting jocularly in a corner with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who joined the other leaders yesterday.

After Bush's trip to Europe last month, several top European officials complained Bush promised to consult with them about missile defense and climate change, when in fact he had already made up his mind. Before last week's trip, Bush told European reporters his approach would be to "just tell people what I think."

Bush appeared to be running into still more complaints in private from European leaders on this trip. Standing podium-to-podium with Bush at a news conference in England on Thursday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair laid on the praise. But in private, according to British sources, Blair was "brutally frank" with Bush about their differences and "really laid into him" about the need to offer a more specific alternative to the Kyoto treaty on global warming.

Bush was not in a combative mood, despite the criticism, said a senior administration official who spent most of the weekend with the president. "He tends to take a positive view," the official said. "A lot of these are discussions about, how do we accomplish X? And how do we accomplish Y? He approaches those things with a great deal of energy."

Bush was widely criticized for his remark after meeting Putin in Slovenia on June 16 that he "was able to get a sense of his soul" during their meeting.

Asked if perhaps Bush had been over-eager for a friendship with the Russian leader, a senior administration official said Bush had been "straightforward" with Putin, whom he will meet with again here today. The official added, "The hard issues were out there. I call it 'businesslike,' because they dealt with every issue, including the very hard ones, in a pretty straightforward way."

Bush's approach, however, can raise questions about his ability to deal with complex topics. Yesterday, after reporters elicited a long list of subjects Bush did not discuss in one-on-one meetings with Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac -- the dollar, climate change, missile defense, a United Nations resolution on Iran, Middle East peace observers, oil prices, ways to deal with protesters at future meetings -- the briefer was asked what Bush did bring up in the meeting with Chirac.

"President Bush brought up Iraq, that was one sentence, thanked him for his help," the briefer said. Separately, the briefer said that Korea "was about a two-sentence discussion."

A senior administration official who worked with Bush this weekend said the foreign policy novice seems to be learning fast. "He's very well briefed and internalizes it all," the official said. "In these meetings, he works completely without notes."