US President George W. Bush isn't known for his willingness for giving interviews, but he recently sat down with German TV presenter Sabine Christiansen for 30 minutes. He answered her questions readily -- but also showed that he's become little more than a spectator of his own political decline. A man and a woman sit in front of an unlit fireplace in the White House. The woman is Germany's most well known TV presenter. The man is the most powerful man in the world -- or at least that's how he's introduced before the interview begins. And yet what we're shown on German ARD public television Sunday night is really a trans-Atlantic misunderstanding. Sabine Christiansen, who asks George W. Bush about one pressing global issue after another -- and who is relatively insistent when it comes to human rights issues -- isn't really talking to the most powerful man in the world at all. In the spring of 2006, one-and-a-half years after Bush's triumphant re-election, she may in fact be speaking to the most powerless US president of all time. In the past 60 years, only one American president had worse poll ratings 18 months after his election: Richard Nixon at the end of his stint in office. Bush could safely ignore those polls if everything else were okay -- but at the moment nothing is. For some time now, the president has become an observer of his own political decline. But the world of television often has little to do with reality and Bush's plunge was hardly an issue in the interview. Iraq is a long way from developing into the model democracy that Bush wanted to create by toppling Saddam Hussein. Iran is pressing ahead with its nuclear program, unimpressed by Washington's threats. Compared to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad and his fantasies about the annihilation of Israel, Saddam Hussein was a tinhorn despot. From hawk to dove? Bush's answer to the question of how he will respond to the threats from Tehran is a far cry from the hawkish rhetoric we've grown used to. Diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy -- that's what he's betting on, at least for now. The hawks in Washington are burned out; they have no answers to what's happening in Iran. Oh wait, there's also Latin America, where they're electing one leftist government after another. What would once have given rise to crisis meetings and secret military plans doesn't even seem to be worth a question anymore.
A man and a woman sit in front of an unlit fireplace in the White House. The woman is Germany's most well known TV presenter. The man is the most powerful man in the world -- or at least that's how he's introduced before the interview begins. And yet what we're shown on German ARD public television Sunday night is really a trans-Atlantic misunderstanding. Sabine Christiansen, who asks George W. Bush about one pressing global issue after another -- and who is relatively insistent when it comes to human rights issues -- isn't really talking to the most powerful man in the world at all. In the spring of 2006, one-and-a-half years after Bush's triumphant re-election, she may in fact be speaking to the most powerless US president of all time.
In the past 60 years, only one American president had worse poll ratings 18 months after his election: Richard Nixon at the end of his stint in office. Bush could safely ignore those polls if everything else were okay -- but at the moment nothing is. For some time now, the president has become an observer of his own political decline. But the world of television often has little to do with reality and Bush's plunge was hardly an issue in the interview.
Iraq is a long way from developing into the model democracy that Bush wanted to create by toppling Saddam Hussein. Iran is pressing ahead with its nuclear program, unimpressed by Washington's threats. Compared to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad and his fantasies about the annihilation of Israel, Saddam Hussein was a tinhorn despot.
From hawk to dove?
Bush's answer to the question of how he will respond to the threats from Tehran is a far cry from the hawkish rhetoric we've grown used to. Diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy -- that's what he's betting on, at least for now. The hawks in Washington are burned out; they have no answers to what's happening in Iran. Oh wait, there's also Latin America, where they're electing one leftist government after another. What would once have given rise to crisis meetings and secret military plans doesn't even seem to be worth a question anymore.
