Bush Reveals He Had Fingers Crossed During Apology To China

In a White House briefing today, the president revealed that he had his fingers crossed during his statement of regret to the Chinese government, and therefore the apology “didn’t really count.”

The president waited until the U.S. service men and women were back on American soil to reveal his finger-crossing strategy. “I didn’t want the Chinese government to pull anything,” Mr. Bush told reporters. “They can be pretty sneaky.”

Insiders say that the president’s foreign policy team was split on the finger-crossing move. Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice reportedly favored the idea of the president keeping his fingers crossed, while Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld advocated another strategy: making an apology to the Chinese that was “sarcastic.”

According to sources close to the Defense Department, Rumsfeld recommended that the president make a statement to the effect that the U.S. regretted the collision with the Chinese airforce jet, and then say, “Yeah, right.”

Ultimately, however, the finger-crossing plan won out. “The president felt more comfortable with it,” a White House aide said. “He used it on the campaign trail a lot, like when he promised to protect the environment and be compassionate and junk like that.”