Our Leader

"I respect [Malaysian] Prime Minister Badawi, admire his leadership," Bush said. "When his wife died, I tried to call him early just to let him know I cared about him."

"He has remarried," one of the journalists told him.

"Has he?" Bush asked. "Good. I'll congratulate him. Thanks for giving me that heads-up. Don't put that in the article that you had to tell me that. You can put it in there if you want. I'll be glad to -- I'm going to congratulate him. That's neat."

"You did, sir," interjected National Security Council aide Dennis Wilder.

"What?"

"You did congratulate him."

"Exactly. I'm going to congratulate him again," Bush said, trying to recover as the journalists laughed. "I'll double the congratulations. That's right, I did write him a note. I forgot. Did I call him or write him a note?"

"You wrote him a note," Wilder said.

"That's right, yes. Sent him a couple flowers."