Even before most alarm clocks had sounded in New York and Washington, President Obama had already driven in four motorcades, taken two helicopters rides, and flown on his plane from Russia to Italy.
“My wife Michelle. So nice to see you. So good to see you,” Obama had said, upon greeting Italian President Giorgio Napolitano with the first lady, who was dressed in a canary yellow summer dress, at Rome’s Quirinale Palace. As is his nearly obsessive habit, Obama insisted on preceding the formal meeting with Napolitano with yet another comment about the weather. “It is much warmer here than it was in Moscow,” he said, which it was, though the Quirinale Palace rivals the Kremlin in its overwrought splendor. (Both palaces are big on gold paint and ceilings that soar hundreds of feed above visitors, but they are also stunning in different ways: I have never seen anything like the wood carved floor inlays in the Kremlin, literally tens of thousands of individual, curved pieces in each room, and it would be difficult to imagine any country with more beautifully painted ceilings–impeccable Renaissance scenes of cherubs, soldiers on horseback, flowers arrangements, and the sort of nude women that would avert John Ashcroft’s eyes–than those in Italy.)
Some mornings on Presidential foreign trips are about news, signing ceremonies, treaty negotiations and major speeches. Others are about diplomatic courtesy, photos and private confabs. Wednesday morning fell into the latter category. By the time Obama arrived in L’Aquilla, in the mountainous region that was struck by a deadly earthquake this year, it was only 1 p.m. in Italy. With the sun just breaking the horizon on the East Coast of the United States, thousands of foreign press at the Italian press tents at the G8 Summit had already consumed hundreds of bottles of wine and champagne. (Oh, to be a European correspondent. . . )
Obama was led into a working lunch with other world leaders, sitting between France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain’s Gordon Brown, and was gifted a coffee-table book with marble covers. (Yes, marble, as in stone.) This gave Obama a chance to needle his aide Reggie Love, who is often tasked with carrying Obama’s belongings. “You know you are going to have to carry this back,” Obama said. “Good luck getting this in your luggage.” Outside, two pretty young women stood in the sun dressed like airline stewardesses in navy skirt-suits, awaiting the “family photo” of G8 leaders, where the women would be charged with aiding the politicians onto the platform with attractive smiles. It was grueling work. A few minutes earlier, I had watched one of the women limp away into a nearby building to change from her three inch heals to flats.
Those of us who are still sober enough to care in the press file are assured that news will come later today. Big issues like global warming, food security for the poor, the still-deteriorating economy and African development are on the agenda. A collective statement on the internal turmoil in Iran is expected to be released either today or tomorrow. And Obama is set to tour the earthquake zone with his Italian host, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, later this afternoon. But for now, we are holding, in painful shoes, or with cool drinks, waiting for something more to happen.
