Could President Bush be getting impatient in this, the eighth year of his presidency? He sounded like a curmudgeonly old man at Monday’s photo-op on the South Lawn to honor the Louisiana State University championship football team. Sure, he opened his remarks with a peppy “Go Tigers!” But the good cheer didn’t last long. He interrupted the ensuing applause by almost instantly barking, “Sit down! … Please sit down.”
Even the one-liners had a grumpy feel to them. “So I met some of these men in 2004 — they feel pretty comfortable they were going to be back here,” he said. “Some of them weren’t so sure I was going to be back
here.”
Recommended Stories
And every lemon puss has to beat up on the big bad media. Coach Les Miles, Bush noted, “had to deal with some delicate situations away from the field, like inaccurate press stories. … Coach, let me just say, I know the feeling.”
Joining the players and hundreds of fans, who were provided hot beverages thanks to the football weather, were Louisiana Reps. Jim McCrery, Charles Boustany and Rodney Alexander.
Their scandal-plagued colleagues, Sen. David Vitter and Rep. William Jefferson, did not make it (both have reasons of their own to be grumpy). Neither did Sen. Mary Landrieu, who had business in the state, though her opponent in the fall, state Treasurer John Kennedy, made sure to attend and get a little face time with the
president.
Bush’s biggest laugh line may have come at the expense of another Louisianan who was absent. “Is Breaux here?” he asked of former Sen. John Breaux, who recently teamed up with former Sen. Trent Lott to start a lobbying shop. “No, he’s working. Which is a major upset,” Bush quipped.
The team is expected on Capitol Hill today for a tour.
