The New York Times, Still White House Dictation Office

By: Bernard Chazelle

To enlarge the Nov 15 summit in Washington from the G7 to the G20 was the bright idea of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia. True to form, Bush had no clue what Rudd was talking about:

After the President [Bush] explained the pressure from Europe for a G7-brokered action on supporting the credit sector and reforming regulation, Rudd immediately insisted the G20 was the solution.

Rudd was then stunned to hear Bush say: "What's the G20?"

This is how the New York Times explained the decision to convene the G20:

American officials said it was Mr. Bush’s idea to expand the guest list to 20 countries, rather than the usual gathering of 7 or 8.

As ATR readers will no doubt notice, this sentence contains not one but two errors.

— Bernard Chazelle

ADDED BY JON: This is good stuff:

Australia's opposition Liberal party has leapt on the reports, claiming it could damage Australia's ties with the US.

Malcolm Turnbull, the leader of the Liberal party, described the situation as a “remarkable diplomatic gaffe” and called for Mr Rudd to apologise for embarrassing the American president.

Alexander Downer, the former Foreign Minister who served in John Howard's government, called for an investigation into the alleged leak, saying it could damage relations between the two countries.

One nice thing about living in the United States is that our dickheads are actually in charge of things, rather than filling the role of subsidiary dickheads who follow yapping in the wake of the alpha dickheads.

People like Tony Blair, John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull and Alexander Downer would surely prefer to be giving the orders themselves. But for them, the next best thing to giving orders is taking orders. The critical thing is that orders are being given and obeyed.