The Prez' Bubble

With his legislative disdain for any program that doesn't benefit the rich and powerful, the Prez is well known to be out of touch with the concerns of regular Americans.

Now it seems he's even out of touch with his own government.

As you're no doubt already aware, yesterday a private plane accidently wandered into DC airspace, triggering a rather sloppy evacuation of the capitol.

So after the brouhaha over Bush's inaction in the minutes following the 9/11 attacks you'd think a system would be in place to enable more immediate action, right? Wrong.

In fact Bush's handlers didn't see fit to interrupt his bike ride to inform him of what was then believed to be an attack on the nation's capitol.

Even winger pundit Joe Scarborough is flabbergasted:

"I don't get it. All of America is glued to their TV sets . . . you've got people rushing out of government buildings all across Washington, D.C., and you don't notify the president of the United States? For an hour? Until after it's all over? Because, what, you don't want to disturb his bike ride in Maryland? I'm sorry, I just don't get it. . . .

"After I watched '[Fahrenheit] 9/11,' one of the parts that made me the angriest was the part about 'My Pet Goat.' I thought it was a cheap shot. I said, seven, eight, nine minutes, big deal. But here you have an attack going on -- or something most Americans thought was an attack -- for 15, 20, 30 minutes and the president of the United States not notified. Why?"

My guess? The Prez' aides didn't want to see a repeat of their boss' "deer in the headlights" performance a la the My Pet Goat incident.

So instead of giving him a chance to further demonstrate his incompetence, they simply refused to give him the news. Expect to hear White House reports that the Prez would've jumped immediately into action, had he only been informed. Darned presidential aides.

Probably a good career move, taking a publicity bullet for the boss like that.

I have to wonder though, if the people who know him best can't trust the Prez with such news, what does that say about his ability to run the country?

But you already know the answer to that.