Bush watchers watch for Bush’s watch in Albania

The news story reporting the mysterious disappearance of President Bush’s wristwatch while he was shaking hands with several hundred of his newest best friends in Albania a week ago was one of no great significance in the grand scheme of things.

Nonetheless, the item has stuck with me like some long-forgotten catchy tune that suddenly surfaces, unbidden, and rattles around in the void between my ears for days on end.

The Associated Press story out of Tirana, Albania, reported that the Albania news media and international Web sites were buzzing with video showing the president’s wristwatch apparently disappearing while he was shaking hands with admirers in the town of Fushe Kruje, where he had been made an honored citizen. One moment the watch was there, the next moment it was gone.

“Did it fall off? Did one of his bodyguards remove it? Or did one of the crowd artfully slip it off his wrist and pocket it?” the article asked.

The Albanians had given President Bush “a rapturous welcome, shaking hands with him, grabbing him by the arms and wrists, reaching out to embrace him and even ruffling his hair. Bush was clearly delighted and plunged back into the crowd for more handshaking and to be kissed on the cheek,” the story reported.

An Albanian bodyguard who accompanied Bush in the town told the AP he had seen one of the president’s bodyguards close to the president bend down and pick up the watch. A local television channel showed how a bodyguard may have spoken with the president and then taken the watch from his wrist for safekeeping.

The U.S. Embassy in Albania emphatically denied that Bush’s watch had been stolen by some slickster in a land where the president had just been proclaimed a hero during a love fest of amazing proportions. An embassy spokesperson declined to say what exactly had happened in the now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t incident. In any case, she assured reporters, Bush had his watch back and the media would do well to look elsewhere for some real news. End of story.

I suppose she’s right about that. It really was no big deal. Still, the story piqued my interest more than any other item in that day’s newspaper, probably for a couple of reasons.

For starters, there’s the line about the natives “grabbing [Bush] by the arms and wrists, reaching out to embrace him and even ruffling his hair” and kissing him on the cheek.

As I read that passage, the obvious question loomed large to me, and perhaps to much of the quasi-alert readership of this newspaper, as well: Just how long do you suppose it might take for a squad of Secret Service bodyguards to muckle onto, hog-tie and frog-march off to the nearest federal dungeon anyone in this country whose unbridled enthusiasm provoked him to grab a president by the arms and wrists, embrace him and ruffle his hair? The more so if the president had Big Hair along the order of wannabe president John Edwards and had just laid out $400 for a deluxe coif job down at the local beauty salon.

Perhaps half a second? A bit more? Somewhat less? And, Part B of my two-part question: Shouldn’t the rules be the same for presidential hair-rufflers and wrist-grabbers whether in Albania or Alabama? Presumably the potential for harm would be the same in both instances.

As for the presidential wristwatch being removed by a bodyguard for safekeeping during a love fest, I can see where this could have the potential to be every bit as dicey a situation, diplomacywise, as the huggy-kissy stuff.

Leave the watch on the presidential wrist when Bush plunges into the amped-up mob of admirers jostling for position and chances are pretty good you might not see it again until it is offered for sale on eBay.

Remove the watch halfway into the plunge and send the signal to your adoring Balkan fans that, much as you love having your hair ruffled and your cheeks kissed – something there is precious little of these days back home – you wouldn’t trust them as far as you could throw the entire lot.

Send such a message after you have, as in Bush’s case, just had your likeness appear on three Albanian postage stamps, had a street in front of parliament renamed in your honor, been awarded the nation’s highest medal, and been declared an honored citizen of Fushe Kruje and you might easily insult roughly 3 million people.

I can’t cite you any instances, but I’m pretty sure wars have started over lesser affronts.

BDN columnist Kent Ward lives in Limestone. Readers may contact him via e-mail at olddawg@bangordailynews.net.