A new trick for White House witnesses

As was noted during a few weeks ago during the 9/11 Commission hearings in Washington, Dubya's administration has perfected the testimonial filibuster -- when on the ropes before a commission or Congressional committee, just make a really long opening statement, and then give, shall we say, expansive, answers to questions. But here's a trick they haven't tried yet -- testifying in a foreign language.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern was a victim of this stunt from his visiting Chinese counterpart yesterday. With Bertie acting as President of the EU Council, he was supposed to do the usual thing and raise concerns about human rights in China, Tibet etc, then proceed to a news conference where each side would have done the diplomatic dance around those issues. But it never got that far, because Bertie didn't get to say much at all, and there was no news conference. Because:

Informed sources at Dublin Castle said the reason the meeting between Mr Wen [Chinese PM] and Mr Ahern exceeded its allotted time was twofold: the Chinese leader speaks no English and an unexpected amount of time was taken up with translation; and because Mr Wen had spoken at considerable length about the positive features of the Chinese economy.

We were all supposed to be impressed that Dubya speaks Spanish. Maybe he's polishing it up for his next grilling.