Just another Bush joke...?

Eddie Goldenberg, Jean Chretien's loyal advisor has written his memoirs. It would appear that it's mostly a book about process (as the title, "The Way It Works" might suggest) but there is one bit (which I hi-lighted) in a review in the Globe & Mail that stimulated my GWB sensor:

Goldenberg is most personally engaged -- aside, perhaps, from his episodes on Paul Martin -- when he describes Chretien's post-9/11 sessions with U.S. President George W. Bush, understanding that his boss's decision to decline a role in Iraq -- whether ultimately right or ultimately wrong -- would define Chretien's foreign-policy legacy. He is as candid here, portraying the "West Texan," as he is elsewhere reserved. "If I catch anyone who leaks in my government," Bush tells Chretien in March, 2002, "I would like to string them up by the thumbs -- the same way we do with prisoners in Guantanamo."

Goldenberg turns this piece of evident Oval Office hyperbole into a prophetic reference to Abu Ghraib. Francoise Ducros, Chretien's director of communications, got fired for saying that Bush was a moron -- but she was probably expressing a pervasive judgment in the PMO.

If that's an accurate account of what was said (even if meant as a joke) in light of what we know now... that's pretty creepy!