Can’t lead, can’t speak, but we’ve gone a long way

IT IS the room where the world trembled on the brink of annihilation as global crises were escalated and defused within its curved walls, but for the huge shadow it has cast over humanity this past century, the Oval Office is surprisingly intimate.

As the brilliant spring sunshine poured onto the president’s desk, the ghosts of FDR and JFK hung heavy in the air, as did the decisions they took in this small room to usher in the atomic age and bring the world to the brink of nuclear war over Cuba.

Despite Wall Street and the international banking system plunging into turmoil, the 43rd president was wrestling with the slightly less momentous task of how best to say goodbye to one of his most loyal international friends, Bertie Ahern.

The erupting stock market crisis only served to underscore the incredible way the Taoiseach of a country of four million people can so punch above his diplomatic weight on St Patrick’s Day as President George W Bush lavished White House time and circumstance on Mr Ahern.

As the backdrop for their St Patrick’s swan song shifted from the intensity of the Oval Office to the sumptuous elegance of the East Wing, so did Mr Bush’s demeanour.

With both men edging hesitantly towards the exit of the political stage, the president was enough at ease to say they would soon have time to reflect on their greatest achievement together, peace in the North, once they joined the “ex-leader’s club”.

While the Taoiseach heaped praise on his old ally before presenting him with a bowl of shamrock, Mr Bush stood there giggling and looking around pointing at various people in the audience as if to say: “Hey, it’s me — I’m still president! How’d that happen?”

As Bertie stumbled over his speech, Mr Bush’s smile was broader than ever as he leaned over to pat the Taoiseach on the back, glad there was still another leader of an English speaking nation who found the English language as alien as he did.

What authority Mr Bush has left after the disaster of Iraq and the dramatic slide of the world economy, drains further from him by the day.

With 10 months still to serve, Mr Bush is already fading into history faster than any president in the modern era as this is the first election year for more than half a century where neither the commander in chief nor his vice-president are standing to propel the administration into the future.

Just feet away from the president as he received the shamrock, members of the White House press corps bitched about how awkward Bush is as he lingers in the doorway as visiting heads of state leave — standing alone, the most powerful man in the world momentarily looking like the loneliest.

White House speech writers admit they dread the shamrock ceremony as they have to come up with a different way of saying the same thing year after year.

The one delivered yesterday was more eloquent than most as Mr Bush spoke of the Irish being “an essential thread in the American blanket”.

Before enthusiastically nodding along to a rendition of “Isle of hope, isle of tears” in the manner of a tone deaf Mr Bean, the president spoke of the ways those with names like Murphy, Kelly and O’Sullivan had shaped the US for the better.

He then ad-libed, saying he should also mention the Irish name McCain as a positive influence — a not so subtle reference to the Republican candidate to succeed him, John McCain, whose private loathing for the president is returned in equal measure.

As fresh snipers took up position on the roof overlooking the rose garden, President Bush’s 21-vehicle motorcade, including a personal ambulance, roared into downtown DC to get to a lunch in the Taoiseach’s honour at the Capitol building before Mr Ahern’s rather more modest three- car entourage arrived.

With both men embarking on the final stage of their political journeys, the president told Mr Ahern:

“I know you are going to sprint onto the finish, as am I.”

As the rolling news screens filled with talk of an economic crisis and Mr Ahern hurried home to his uncertain future, it was clear to see why both men took such comfort from their final shared St Patrick’s Day shelter from reality.