George Bush is a reformed alcoholic, and takes staying on the wagon seriously. I have recently discovered that you can’t get a drink at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, since it’s located in the dry gulch of prohibitionist counties. As we wait for the Bush-Blair show to begin, I find you can’t get a drink in the White House itself. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the programme will commence in two minutes,’ bark the loudspeakers in the White House hallway. Up close, W. is small and dapper, with a far from friendly glint in the eyes. You can tell he’s a martinet, even before he turns meanly on an American reporter: ‘You violated the two-question rule as usual. You have a bad habit of this.’ I ask if there is a direct link between Saddam Hussein and the September 11 bombers. Bush mutters, ‘I cannot make that claim.’ Later this appears as ‘inaudible’ in the White House transcript and ‘make that plain’ on the Downing Street website.
Not all foreign leaders are as keen as Mr Blair to have face-time with the President. The current toast of the Oval Office is the President of Djibouti. Tiring of his allotted meeting time after just five minutes, he took his leave and walked out amid whoops of ‘All right!’ from the Leader of the Free World.
Bush smothers Blair with compliments, and yet gives the Prime Minister no help with a further UN resolution. He clearly calculates that his guest has gone so far out on a limb that he has nowhere else to go. The President may be famous for his verbal infelicities – on this occasion he mixes Iran with Iraq – but he knows what he wants and generally gets it.
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