Gone, Baby, Gone

President Bush hates long, windy meetings, and NATO sessions can drag on and on. That may be why Bush suddenly left the final session of the Bucharest summit last night -- not bothering to wait for the official group photo. He hustled back to the hotel so unexpectedly that he left some of his motorcade behind, including the press pool, our colleague Peter Baker reports.

"The president stayed there all day long. He listened to everybody," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice explained to the Associated Press's Terry Hunt. "It is rare -- if you actually counted the number of heads of states that were up and down and gone most of the time, it's a lot. So, the president had been there all day. He now has to get ready to go. . . ."

National security adviser Stephen Hadley chimed in: "And he didn't go in and out like other people," a group that included French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Yes, indeed, Rice said. "He sat there and listened to everybody."

"You know," Hadley added, "he's got a few other things to do.

"So, it wasn't abrupt. And [Defense Secretary ] Bob Gates stayed to represent us" during a discussion of Afghanistan.

Bush stayed at his hotel for 2 1/2 hours before emerging to go to the official evening "cultural event" at the Athenaeum, to be followed by a dinner with the other leaders at the nearby Athenee Palace Hilton Hotel.

While England Slept

Usually, witnesses at congressional hearings enlighten lawmakers on the inner workings of their departments. But not always.

Take Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England's appearance recently before the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, in which ranking Republican David L. Hobson (Ohio) asked about something that appears to have been bothering him for a while.

"Over a quarter of the Department of Energy's budget is focused on nuclear weapons," Hobson said. "Your department develops the strategy for using these weapons, for what [operations], how many are needed and that sort of thing."

The problem, Hobson said, is that his subcommittee "is left in the position of having to come up with the money to pay for them, often taking funding away from energy programs or funding for levees. And I heard some complaints that Defense asks for the pie in the sky sometimes because they don't have to pay for it; it doesn't come out of your budget, so ask for everything. . . . Do you think this current arrangement makes sense?" he asked.

"Mr. Hobson, I guess I was not aware that we were not paying for these programs," England replied.