Live from Saint Petersburg. The G8 Comedy Show!

You know certain things depress me, and I've been avoiding writing about them as school will be here before I know it. I'll just save all depressing writing until then.

The G8 Summit is one of those things. I'm jaded because I see it as the heads of the richest countries in the world sitting around having really good catered meals, posing for photo ops, and generally playing nice. They can't and don't seem to make any real world changes at these events. Even if they do agree to something then they've got to take it back home and hope it gets approval from their respective legislatures. Basically, it's a fun conference where they get to relax, sip Mai-tais and hang out with their peers.

Big yawn...

However, as Bush's microphone faux pas shows, there are some things to snicker about.

Here is another one:

A reporter had asked President Bush how his conversation with Putin on "concerns about Russian democracy" had gone.

"I have shared with him my desires for our country, and he shared with me his desires for his," said Bush. "And I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same thing."

"We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly," Putin joked.

"Just wait," Bush responded

Putin: Russia doesn't want 'kind of democracy' US has in Iraq

Here is a link to video of this exchange.

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This is the thing. From my understanding, a liberal democracy is something a people must want to achieve in order for it to happen. This is why I still don't understand how anyone who wasn't a grade schooler believed that waging war in Iraq would be successful.

You can't blast into a country, topple its leadership and then say "now have democratic elections." The people have to want this process or else you're going to have dudes with guns hanging out by the roadsides on election day aiming at voters. That's exactly what we have in Iraq right now.

Democracy is one thing but before democracy can take hold and work you have to have a population that understands how democracy works and is willing to take the steps needed to put it into action. Even in my own country, the USA, 230 years into democracy we're still having debates and disagreements about how democracy should work.

I think it's grand that Bush was put in check for trying to again tell other countries how their societies must work.

Now carry-on with the show!

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