Profiles in Leadership

Via James Wolcott, here's how our President has brought "honor and dignity" back to the White House:

(Venezuelan President Hugo) Chavez, in Havana for trade talks, told an international gathering of activists here that before an earlier trip to Cuba, a U.S. State Department undersecretary he did not identify warned him not to go because he would no longer be received in Washington.

He said he went ahead with that trip anyway, and later traveled to the United States to visit U.S. President George W. Bush, who he said greeted him with a Coca-Cola in his hand.

"Hey, how ya doin'? Who are you, now? (Sip sip slurp slurp) Want some? I got 'em chillin' in the mini-fridge!"

Not exactly the SALT II talks with this guy, is it?

In the bulk of the article, Chavez, who has cozied up to Castro and Cuba in recent years, and who understands that anti-American rhetoric plays in his country as well as anti-French rhetoric does here, promised that he would not visit the United States again until Americans "liberate" their nation. Last week, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il called the President "a hooligan bereft of any personality as a human being ... and a philistine whom we can never deal with."

Is it wrong that I'm starting to agree with every word these guys say? I mean, I know that's wrong, and yet they appear to be making a lot of sense.

On the serious tip, addressing world leaders while holding a Coke in your hand, and ratcheting up rhetoric against your enemies will do nothing but bring the same kind of disdain and anger back upon you. That's not necessarily bad (it's why they call the Presidency the bully pulpit, after all), but you can't sit back and be outraged by it.