By Dale McFeatters
Scripps Howard News Service
According to the White House, when the thought came up to move the G8 summit from Chicago ― scheduled to be held there for at least the past year ― President Barack Obama was "intrigued by the novelty of the idea."
Well, that's one explanation for abruptly shifting the venue of the May 18-19 gathering to Camp David.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel only learned of the planned change shortly after the decision was made Monday. Emanuel was a good sport about it since his city is still hosting the May 20-21 NATO summit that was to immediately follow the G8.
The idea is still more of a novelty since Obama rarely uses the rustic presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains just north of Washington and, unlike his predecessors, has never entertained a foreign leader there.
Nor is Camp David, isolated and very secure, set up for large-scale diplomatic gatherings. The small press corps that follows the president to the Maryland retreat when there is the prospect of news hangs out at the fire hall in the closest town, Thurmont.
The summit will include leaders from the world's eight largest economies ― the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and Russia, as well as the European Union. The full proceedings are highly orchestrated and tightly scripted and conclude with a bland joint communique that is quickly forgotten.
The White House says Camp David's "informal and intimate setting" will "facilitate a free-flowing discussion with our close G8 partners" on a broad range of economic, political and security issues.
This explanation might be less spin than it seems. The real work of the G8 is done in a series of private bilateral meetings ― "bilats," in diplomatese ― among the leaders. Perhaps the most famous of these at Camp David was "the walk in the woods" of President Jimmy Carter and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat that led to Egypt's recognition of Israel.
Hosting the summit rotates among the member countries and it has become an annual gathering for unruly and sometimes violent protesters espousing a farrago of causes ― global warming, industrialization, poverty, hunger, rain forests, genetically modified food ― concerns the protesters typically advance by breaking windows and taunting the police.
One protest group took credit for the change in venue. "Clearly, Occupy is having a huge impact on the decision-making at the highest levels of government," said a Chicago spokeswoman.
Well, that, too, is one explanation, but one suspects that we're still waiting for the full one.
Dale McFeatters is an editorial writer for Scripps Howard News Service (www.scrippsnews.com).
