President Bush Speaks With Americans... It Doesn't Go Well

I've said it time and time again... whenever President Bush is thrust in front of an audience that his handlers didn't handpick for him, and has to answer unscripted questions, he does not handle it well. He is kept so isolated, he doesn't know how to handle real, working-class Americans when he occassionally goes in front of them. He stammers, he makes bad jokes, and he freaks out.

Case in point- His 'big' speech today in Cleveland.

Toward the end of a fairly pointed question-and-answer session with the crowd (including one who asked him about the influence of radical Christianity in government), the President asked "How long do you people do questions around here?... Doesn't anybody work in this town?".

Think Progress has video (and economic stats on the town Bush probably doesn't care about):
Bush To Cleveland: ‘Anybody Work Here In This Town?’

Digby has a lengthy blog post on the speech and all that stuff Bush talked about- how he's "protecting us" (he said this a lot), lots of 9/11 references (in case we forget to be scared), our progress in Iraq (see last entry), and something about Iran (invasion coming soon to a cable news channel near you?). And, oh yes, he is protecting us.

So why do I have the feeling we need some protection from him?