Bush has upset stomach at G-8 summit By JENNIFER LOVEN ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER Updated June 8, 2007 1:06 p.m. PT
U.S. President George W. Bush, left, smiles as he walks with French
President Nicolas Sarkozy after a photo session at the G8 summit in
Heiligendamm, Germany, Friday June 8, 2007. (AP Photo/Toshifumi Kitamura, Pool)
HEILIGENDAMM, Germany -- The first sign that all was not well came when Nicolas
Sarkozy, France's new president, faced reporters alone after a private meeting
with President Bush.
Bush was supposed to talk to the media, too. So where was he, they all wanted
to know.
Sarkozy declined to indulge them.
Speaking in French, he said only that Bush was in his bedroom. His spokesmen
would have to explain.
An upset stomach kept Bush in his hotel room for several hours, aides said
later, forcing him to miss part of the third and final day of work at the Group
of Eight Summit of industrialized democracies, held in this seaside resort.
Bush rejoined the conference in time for the closing lunch and continued with
his schedule, flying first to Poland for a meeting with the president and then
to Rome.
"He's not 100 percent, but he felt well enough to return to the talks," White
House adviser Dan Bartlett said.
Doctors attended to Bush, and the suspicion was that he had come down with
"some sort of bug, probably more viral in nature" and probably unrelated to
anything he ate, Bartlett said.
Even while ill, Bush taped his weekly radio address. He went ahead with the
planned meeting with Sarkozy. And he prepared for talks later in the day in
Poland on a proposed missile defense system.
Bartlett said Laura Bush hadn't felt well a few days earlier and also had kept
to her schedule.
As the day neared an end, mild ribbing replaced concern about the president's
health.
On the flight from Germany to Gdansk, Poland, White House spokeswoman Dana
Perino was asked whether Bush ate lunch at the conference - and whether it
stayed down during the helicopter ride to the airport.
"Yes. No reports of any lunch coming up, no," she said to laughter.
Bartlett had joked earlier that Bush's decision to avoid the other world
leaders for a while was a "precautionary step" to keep from suffering the same
fate as his father, former President George H. W. Bush.
The elder Bush fainted and vomited at a state dinner in Tokyo in January, 1992.
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