Forbidden Video Spreads

oops.

It looks like that unauthorized video of President Bush primping and practicing on the teleprompter before last Wednesday's war speech is destined to become a cult classic. White House officials cried foul after the BBC broadcast 97 seconds of the not-ready-for-prime-time president, but we hear that broadcast outlets in Portugal and Italy aired a full 10 to 15 minutes of the scene, mistakenly made available by the CBS crew pulling pool duty for the speech.

Allentown, Pa., viewer Bob Agonis tells us he caught Bush's speech-prep on Portugal's public broadcasting network RTP (for Radioteleviso Portuguesa). Bush could be heard practicing the speech, repeating the same lines over and over, while the Portuguese anchor provided the occasional snickering commentary. Agonis and his wife Sharon "at first figured the White House had given permission early to all the other networks as well," he said. "Then as we flipped and didn't see Bush on American channels, we realized, 'This isn't supposed to be here!'" As for the commentary, "Who knows what they were saying, but it was easy to detect their laughs. The worst part is that it wasn't just an accidental feed strictly to Allentown, but it's going to Portugal, Brazil. Altogether it's not good!'

An American expatriate in Italy, meanwhile, emailed that he caught the video of Bush, "looking rather jumpy," on a satiric half-hour show that airs nightly after the Canale 5 evening news program in Rome. "It was hilarious, and I won't bore you by telling you what an American who has lived in Italy for many years thinks of this whole mess," he wrote. "Some clips are used endlessly, and I suspect that will be the fate of Bush's clip -- and I doubt very much that anybody from here will apologize."