Sounded as if he were/had been an accidental tourist

Hi all,

Recently I came across an interesting sentence which seemed incorrect to me and I would like to know whether my understanding is correct or not.

In a NY times editorial, published on 11 Jan 2007, a writer wrote about President Bush.

(You can find the full editorial from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/opinion/11thu1.html )

In the editorial, the writer wrote "But even then, the president sounded as if he were an accidental tourist in Iraq."

My question is;

Shouldn't it be "had been" instead of "were" in the sentence?

It is my understanding that past tense in subjunctive has present meanings and past perfect has past meanings.

For example, when you say "If I had been there", you imply you were not there.

So, if the writer's intention was "he sounded like he was a trouist but he was not," it should have been written as " he sounded as if he had been a tourist" in my opinion.

Or am I missing something? Please let me know.

Thanks for your time.

(Maybe, my English is not very clear to you since I am not a native speaker. I hope I made my point clear.)