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Iranian Leader Animated During Bush UN Address

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September 23, 2008 5:54 PM

ABC News' Jennifer Duck Reports: While President Bush was giving his final address as president to the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was smiling and waving to U.S. journalists who were situated in a booth many feet above the gathered audience of world leaders.

The Iranian president waved a number of times to members of the White House press corps who were nearly 100 yards away on the opposite side of the room.  At one point during the speech the Iranian leader gestured with a thumbs-down to the leader on his right.

President Bush refuses to sit down with the Ahmadinejad who in the past has said Israel should be “wiped off the map” and has called the Holocaust a “myth.”

In his address, President Bush stressed the need to “remain vigilant against proliferation” and specifically called on enforcing sanctions against North Korea and Iran.

“Nations like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are actively pursuing the terrorists,” Bush said. “A few nations — regimes like Syria and Iran — continue to sponsor terror. Yet their numbers are growing fewer, and they’re growing more isolated from the world.”

Ahmadinejad later addressed the Assembly saying Iran will not abandon its nuclear ambitions as has been repeatedly demanded by the United Nations Security Council. 

"The Iranian nation is for dialogue but it has not accepted and will not accept illegal demands," Ahmadinejad said.

With the U.S. economy in turmoil, President Bush attempted to assure the world that Congress and the administration are “working together to quickly pass legislation" to stabilize the rocky markets.

“In recent weeks we've taken bold steps to prevent a severe disruption of the American economy, which would have a devastating affect on other economies around the world,” Bush said. “I’m confident we will act in urgent time frame required."   

On timing of economic legislation, White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto ruled out the possibility that Congress would fail to act on the legislation this week.

“I think you should think of that as unthinkable,” Fratto told reporters. “I think we are all arm-in-arm focused on the need to get it done.”

September 23, 2008 in White House | Permalink | User Comments (57)

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Didn't Obama want to meet this guy? Well, here's his chance. Oh -- maybe that was just more BHO BS!

Posted by: dl | Sep 23, 2008 5:59:03 PM

He seems less afraid about contacting the American press than McCain and Palin.

Posted by: bhciapol | Sep 23, 2008 6:06:52 PM

Did someone take away Bush's sleeping pills???

Posted by: beck | Sep 23, 2008 6:08:58 PM

These men are nutcases... both Bush and Ahmadinejad.

Nov 4 McCain/Palin: "Thanks, But NO Thanks"

Posted by: Vanessa | Sep 23, 2008 6:10:51 PM

Thank you, George Bush. Thank you, John McCain. Thank you, Sarah Palin.

"We are now at a tipping point, with about half of the country now penetrated by a range of Sunni militant groups including the Taliban and al Queida," Jones said. Jones said there is growing concern that Dutch and Canadian forces in Afghanistan would "call it quits."

"The US military would then need six, eight, maybe ten brigades but we just don't have that money," Jones said.

Last week, Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress "we're running out of time" in Afghanistan. "I'm not convinced we're winning it in Afghanistan," Adm. Mullen testified.

Posted by: Mr. Coffee | Sep 23, 2008 6:13:31 PM

I voted for George Bush after 9-11 given what I thought was admirable leadership and response.

Little did I know that he would then invade Iraq so that we could pacify it for the Iranians and that battle would undo the only undeniably good thing he had done in his immediate response to the 9-11 attacks by losing against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Posted by: Mr. Coffee | Sep 23, 2008 6:17:12 PM

yes obama wanted to meet him, i think that meeting with foreign leaders is far superior to invading their nations and spending billions of dollars in tax payer money


but i guess there are those who believe bush and mccains ways are superior why talk when you can fight

Posted by: Bhrandon | Sep 23, 2008 6:21:24 PM

I'll bet the press blew kisses to him.

Posted by: Mary Evans | Sep 23, 2008 6:21:58 PM


Bhrandon

Don't people in Saint Louis know how to use capitol letters?

Posted by: dl | Sep 23, 2008 6:24:40 PM

fake dl

wants to say Obama shouldn't meet with this guy

hey moron

guess what the guy you see in the video is doing this after 8 years of not talking and now he's getting nuclear plants built

fake dl is so smart that he says.."didn't obama want to talk to this guy?"

yeah because as the video above shows...he gets more press for not talking to him

the act of not talking to him

gives him more leverage and notoriety than talking to him and the other 3 or 4 that Bush absolutely says we/he should not talk to...like every other world leader that he does talk to...makes them more important

but oh yeah it takes brains to realize that.

same brains it takes to not fight for policies that lose us a trillion dollars ...(Iraq, deregulation -twice)

fake dl instead of taking my sign on and posing like someone who is smart

try reading.

Posted by: dl (the real one) | Sep 23, 2008 6:32:06 PM

Barry should have taken him to Katz's Deli for lunch.

Posted by: Mack | Sep 23, 2008 6:34:11 PM

And the press blushed, averted their eyes, and whispered "You had me at 'Hello'".

Posted by: Stacy | Sep 23, 2008 6:36:25 PM

Of course he waved at the white house press corps., those are his future harems.

Posted by: Jessica | Sep 23, 2008 6:36:49 PM

Mack

if barry had

maybe he wouldn't be getting so much attention.

i don't know seems everyone can list the bad guys we don't talk to...

but the guys we do talk to seem to get no notariety at all

I wonder why that is

because we don't only have a moron in the white house

not only do we not have a moron running for the white house who beleives the same thing as the moron in the white house

we have a bunch of moron swho voted for them (not all but a bunch...as we see them post here)

the buck does not stop with Bush or mcCain ...

the buck and the failures of this nation...as history will make clear stops with the idiots who vote for them.

Posted by: dl (the real one) | Sep 23, 2008 6:37:58 PM

JUST MORE OF WHAT THE WORLD THINKS OF BUSH AND THE REST OF THE REPUBLCANS THEY ARE MOKING US ....

Posted by: indp voter | Sep 23, 2008 6:42:13 PM

Ahmadinejad and Obama could have spoken one puppet to another.

Posted by: Mack | Sep 23, 2008 6:48:44 PM

seems to me that the two leaders are vying for most immature and childish.
No wonder we are in the mess we are in.
With leaders that act like babies and behaved in such an immature manner, it pretty much sums it all up.
we need real grownups to run the world - not children.
Vote Obama.
He is by far more mature then the hot headed and spoiled McCain and childish Bush.

Posted by: vwcat | Sep 23, 2008 6:51:30 PM

Did Hussein O meet this mini Hitler? I guess not, cuz Hussein O constantly changed his mind.

Posted by: winston | Sep 23, 2008 6:58:39 PM

Mr. Coffee, after 9/11 you went back in time and voted for Bush? Or do you mean you voted for him for his second term, after he invaded Iraq, but little you didn't know that invasion had already happened? You are either an amazing time traveling genius, or the exact opposite of that.

Posted by: ASimpleDad | Sep 23, 2008 7:04:36 PM

Winston, please do us all a favor and sit this election out..

Posted by: Concerned American | Sep 23, 2008 7:13:43 PM

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