Jason Linkins

President Bush concluded his final G8 Summit today. Here's his parting shot:

"Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter!"

I am not making this up! And the Telegraph reports: "He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock."

Oy. Remember how earlier today Rudy Giuliani said that the Europeans hearted Barack Obama because he fuels their anti-American sentiment with all his insistence that American's learn other languages? And I said, "Know what's really reinforced feelings of anti-Americanism? President Bush and his policies!" Well, thanks for making my point for me, Mr. President. Though I needn't have waited until this morning, because the G8 Summit has historically been a venue where Bush has had great success making the other plutocrats in the G8 laugh at us.

Via ThinkProgress, here's another highlight from this week's Summit. I think everything Rudy Giuliani had to say today about how awful Obama is to encourage learning other languages just comes to life:

As the New York Times's Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports, Bush had a bit of a language mishap when speaking to "one of his best buddies in Europe," Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi:

"Amigo! Amigo!" Mr. Bush called out cheerily in Spanish when he spotted the Italian prime minister. "How you doing, Silvio? Good to see you!" Later, the president wondered about his former Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin. "Did Putin come to see you since I saw you?" he asked Mr. Berlusconi. (He had not.)

Matt Yglesias provides a handy little map of the world for Bush's advance team for the next time Bush travels to Europe to represent America, which, naturally, we hope is never.

It's not the first embarrassing moment for the White House, who earlier this week circulated a press kit that included a bio of Berlusconi that described him as ""most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for government corruption and vice." Kinsley gaffe!

And these are just this year's highlights. Remember this "hot mike" incident of 2006? Bush was recorded complaining, "I'm not going to talk too damn long like the rest of them. Some of these guys talk too long." Then he badgered a server for a Diet Coke, noted profoundly that "Russia's big and so is China," and thanked Tony Blair for a sweater he gave him. Blair finally turned the microphone off before Bush could mention just how badly he wanted to cut Kofi Annan's nuts off.

And who could forget that time Bush tried his best move on German Chancellor Angela Merkel?

Really. The only person I can think of who's come off worse in front of the Germans is Basil Fawlty.

Deadspin relates the news today that the Iranian National Men's basketball team, already training here in the U.S., will participate in a series of exhibition games with National Basketball Association's summer league teams in Salt Lake City, Utah. How did this come about? Apparently, there exist significant factions inside Iran that want to breed goodwill with the United States or something!

In addition to the hometown Utah Jazz, there'll be rookie teams representing the Dallas Mavericks, Atlanta Hawks, Golden State Warriors, New Jersey Nets and San Antonio Spurs. U.S. officials believe that the request came from the highest levels in Iran, and is part of an attempt by Iran to tamp down tensions between the two countries. In fact, Iranian officials told NBC News that hardliners in the Islamic Republic opposed the overture.

But moderates in the Iranian government prevailed. The Iranian officials said that moderates in the government have been trying to set something like this up for two years. Iranian officials add that the basketball team is already in the U.S. training for the games.

Surely John McCain must murder these athletes, with cigarettes.

I have got to tell you: I've been staring at this clip of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani disparaging Barack Obama's contention that Americans should strive to learn foreign languages for about fifteen minutes now, and I've come to believe that the best argument for bilingualism is that I just can't find the English word that captures how perplexingly stupid this man is. I have to imagine that there's some thirteen syllable German word out there that sounds like one's sinuses being forcibly cleared that does this trick.

Basically, Giuliani believes that learning a foreign tongue is "a terrific thing." I should think so! Americans have to compete in a global marketplace economically, and there's no end of talk about how we're in desperate need of language specialists to serve any number of national security purposes. But Giuliani seems to think that Obama, by encouraging people to learn Spanish, is taking away from English: "English should be the basic language of this country." In the first place, there is no "should be" - English is, in fact, the basic language of this country and that is in no way under any sort of threat. In the second, do you know what's really useful to those who teach Spanish-speaking immigrants English? KNOWING HOW TO SPEAK SPANISH.

Also, Rudy says that Obama's popular in Europe because he reinforces "anti-American feelings." Know what's really reinforced feelings of anti-Americanism? President Bush and his policies! And that guy went to Yale and still speaks our mother tongue like he was Jar Jar Binks. Rudy Giuliani: what a shonde.

[WATCH.]

GIULIANI: This is why he's a popular candidate in Europe, because there is such an anti-American feeling, he's sort of capturing that. The reality is that this is a country that should speak English. Of course immigrants should learn English. That's a problem for some, it is not a problem for others. There should be a lot of emphasis put on that. If we can learn an extra language or two, that's a great thing.

MITCHELL: The fact is that American kids are not competing on the world stage with the kind of jobs they need because they aren't learning other languages.

GIULIANI: But he is making an assumption that isn't true, That all immigrants are learning English. They're not. All you have to do is travel America and you'll find out a lot of people aren't learning English. Most immigrant families want their children to learn English. That has to be done. He's kind of sliding over that as if that's unimportant. That is very important. Then if we're going to learn another language, that's wonderful. If we can learn French or Spanish or Italian or German or Chinese or Russian, that's a terrific thing. But English should be the basic language of this country. He's kind of sliding over that.

RELATED: Top McCain Surrogates Questioning Obama's American-Ness [TalkingPointsMemo]

Earlier this week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stated that forthcoming agreements with the United States would include a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. At the time, State Department spokesman Sean McCormick joined with the Bush administration in pretending to not know what al Maliki was talking about:

Well, that's really the part - the point at which I would seek greater clarification in terms of remarks. I've seen the same press reports that you have. But I haven't yet had an opportunity to get greater clarity as to exactly to what Mr. Maliki was referring or if, in fact, that's an accurate reporting of what he said.

Here's that greater clarity for you!

Iraqi spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in Baghdad on Wednesday that a U.S. pullout could be completed in several years. "It can be 2011 or 2012," he said. "We don't have a specific date in mind, but we need to agree on the principle of setting a deadline."

That comes buried deep in a story in today's Washington Post, titled "U.S. General: Iraqi Forces to Be Fully Ready in '09." That sort of hints that we should be thinking in the very short-term for the end of the Iraq occupation, right? Why then, is al-Dabbagh's statement equated with the duration of "several years?" A timetable that fixes on completing the withdrawal in 2011 is just six months longer than the withdrawal plan that Senator Barack Obama has long favored.

That's probably why the White House is still weaseling around. Tony Fratto greeted the remarks thusly: "We'd like to have a date that we can reach for as a goal when coalition forces can make this transition, but it should be based on ground conditions." But what's to be gained by refusing to leave? I'd say that when the sovereign government of Iraq is telling you the end of the party is drawing nigh, that qualifies as a "ground condition."