Teleprompter Summit

Beyond the big, high profile meetings that the press covers at multi-lats like the G-20, there are plenty of opportunities for a number of other meetings among aides for economics and national security policies.

Earlier today, the teleprompters for all of the leaders sat down. The meeting was called by the Irish prompter, not a surprise given the St. Patty's Day incident at the White House. What a bunch of pushy, opinionated hard drives these guys are.

I mean, I walk into the room, and it's like I've got a target on my back.  I've got the French Promptaire lecturing me on how I've got to get the Big Guy to talk about fundamental, global-economic-regulation reform.  I've got the Russian Promptski huffing and puffing about how it's important that I get Big O to say his guy and China can have a new currency system. And I don't even understand what the British screen was saying through his heavy Liverpudlian accent.

I have to say, though, that every one of them said something that had merit. And I'm trying to live by Gibbsy's rule about "listening."  It's true that the U.S. economy has been the most successful economy in the history of the world. The most innovative, blah, blah, blah. But now that Big Guy and our braintrust have brought the U.S. economy down to the level of everyone else's, it's probably a good thing to listen to what they have to say. Everyone except Iceland. Because their economy really sucks.