Easy Rider, Ride On

WASHINGTON, May 20 – Laura Bush said today that her husband should
have been interrupted on a bicycle ride last week and told that an off-course
plane had prompted a frantic evacuation of the capital. Her comments
were the first in public from the White House to question the Secret
Service’s decision to keep President Bush in the dark.

The president was not informed of the incident until 40 minutes after
the single-engine plane had been forced turn away, a decision that
gave ammunition to Mr. Bush’s critics who view him as out of touch. The
plane,
which violated the restricted air space regulations put in effect around
Washington, prompted the Secret Service to move Vice President Dick
Cheney, Mrs. Bush and Nancy Reagan, who happened to be visiting, to the
underground
complex of the White House.

Thank goodness he wasn’t informed! There’s no telling how he
might have reacted, drunk on power and flush with endorphins and adreneline.
He might have actually thought Laura and the girls were in danger and
started
issuing
bizarre,
panicky
orders to the military, declaring martial law, grounding all aircraft,
who knows,
invading
some unsuspecting small nation against which he holds a grudge, real
or imagined.

Much better to know that cooler heads were in charge, the grownups
were at home, no need to call little Georgie who’d gone out to play
with his
friend. Frankly, the danger that Geroge is going to be at home
one of these days, at a crucial moment in national
history, and convinced now that he is really in charge, scares the shit
out of us.

from the New York Times