This sort of thing is becoming a new mainstream media technique—planting microphones where they will catch “private” conversations: Bush utters expletive on Hezbollah attacks.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - It wasn’t meant to be overheard. Private luncheon conversations among world leaders, picked up by a microphone, provided a rare window into both banter and substance — including President Bush cursing Hezbollah’s attacks against Israel.

Bush expressed his frustration with the United Nations and his disgust with the militant Islamic group and its backers in Syria as he talked to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the closing lunch at the Group of Eight summit.

“See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this sh-t and it’s over,” Bush told Blair as he chewed on a buttered roll.

Good for President Bush! That’s exactly how I want my president to talk.

But notice that the media are not even pretending this was an accident. They were deliberately trying to catch Bush saying something they could use to embarrass him. Microphones are not left on by accident at G8 summits.

Meanwhile at the summit press conference, French President Jacques Chirac labeled Israel’s actions “aberrant.”

In a sign that diplomatic differences between G8 member had been exacerbated by the recent fighting in the Middle East, the French president, Jacques Chirac, attacked Israel’s action in Lebanon as “aberrant”.

In a press conference marking the end of the summit, President Chirac, who sent his prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, to Beirut on Monday, referred to the deaths of Lebanese civilians: “This unfortunate population ... is bearing the consequences of behaviour which is both violent and aberrant,” he said.

UPDATE at 7/17/06 8:35:54 am:

Atlas has a video capture of the President’s earth-shaking statement.