Life's Little Questions

So, Tom, have you ever met the President of France?

I went on a politics trip to De Montfort University yesterday, and it was actually surprisingly interesting (aside from watching the sun rise whilst on the bus to the train station...) as the two ex-Congressmen that were there, Tom Downey and Lou Frey were pretty funny.

One of the stories that Tom told was about when he met the President. He was pretty high up in the Democrat Party rankings and a 'personal friend' of Al Gore, and was Gore's debating partner leading up to the presidential candidate debates. Apparently they take those things pretty seriously over there, and being a debate partner means you have to dress, talk and act like the person that Gore would be debating and have mock-debates whilst being filmed in that character. So Tom has to be Bush for a while, and he prepares by watching *every* interview, reading *every* speech and has to mimic everything he'd say (a pretty easy task when you're pretending to be Bush...).

One day he was preparing when his secretary walks in saying that they've got post (or 'mail') and when he opened it it was all the notes from the Republican party debates, including two tapes. He put one tape into the video player and played it for a few seconds, when he looked at all the people in his office, stopped it and told everyone that they couldn't rewind it. He called the FBI, who took 5 hours to get there, and they took the tapes away and eventually found out that it was some bitter woman that had sent them over. After this, he had to stay away from Gore for the rest of the election campaign because obviously people wouldn't believe that he hadn't read the material.

However, in one of the debates someone asked Bush what he thought of Tom Downey and, surprisingly, he answered "Oh, sure! He's a great guy! If I ever met him I'd shake his hand!". 'Hah! I'll shake your hand when Gore is President and I'm Secretary of State,' thought Tom. Oops.

So it was about 5 years later at the Prague castle for a UN meeting that he eventually got to meet him. He wasn't in Congress anymore and was supporting another Democrat person there, and was standing with a big camera around his neck, looking like a 'smartly dressed American tourist'. The only people that were there were those two, the President and however many world leaders, as everyone else had been pushed away by Secret Service. He thought that this would be a good time to get that handshake, and so when he got eye contact, he introduced himself, expecting Bush to just go "... you're /who/??".

Tom: Mr President, I'm Tom Downey, I'd like to get that handshake you promised me.
Bush: Wow!! Tom Downey! *pulls him into a bear hug* Look everyone, this is Tom Downey, he's a really great guy!

... And continued introducing him to his wife etc, and briefly told the story about what had happened with the papers. Secret Service started moving the group into the Castle, and Tom thought he'd make the most of this meeting, and went to talk to the president. He said he was impressed with the time that he did running (only something that someone who had spent hours watching every interview with him would have known) and Bush started talking about how much he can benchpress and they were having a good chat etc, when Jacques Chirac tries to stick his head in the middle of them to get in on the conversation, completely ignored by Bush. Bush's advisors were like "I think you should talk to Chirac..." so he stopped, turned around and said

Bush: So, Tom, have you ever met the President of France?

Tom: No, Sir, I don't believe I have.
Bush: Tom, this is Jacques Chirac, President of France; Jacques, this is Tom Downey... a close friend of mine.

... Then put his arm around Tom, completely blocking Chirac out and continued talking about exercise machines with him.

It was excellent.

posted by eriu @ 8:59:00 PM