Oh for Pete’s Sake!

Here’s another thing I’d bet cash money you’ll be seeing again in really short order.

First lady Laura Bush and former first lady Nancy Reagan, who was visiting, were ushered to a bunker beneath the White House for safety, and Vice President Cheney was taken to a secure location, officials said. The president, who was riding his bicycle at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in suburban Maryland, was alerted by his security detail after the drama was over.

The White House is cleared, Congress is emptied, the Veep is rushed to safety, the defense secretary is contacted so he is available to carry out a shoot-down order. What’s missing? Telling the president. This episode went on for almost half an hour. Planes were scrambled at 11:47 am and the civilian pilot did not respond. At 12:06, fighter jets fired warning flares, and then the trouble-making Cessna turned around and headed toward an airport in Maryland, where it landed at 12:37.

Is anyone else puzzled why George W. Bush’s bicycle ride was not immediately interrupted? Or why he was out of the office having so much fun in the middle of a work day?

Well my goodness. Isn’t it just terrible that in the middle of a “work day”, the President of the United States, whose “work day” lasts 24 hours, decided to take advantage of a beautiful day and get in a little bit of exercise.

I imagine other folks will be as surprised as Corn is, and I’ll say that those folks probably have no idea how emergency procedures work.

Without knowing the particulars, I can say a couple things pretty confidently. The Capitol Police, the US Park Police, the Department of Defense, and the Secret Service – all of whom, if I recall correctly, were involved yesterday – have set procedures on how to handle what happened yesterday. Those procedures are set in stone and work step by step. They don’t require the President’s permission, or even his knowledge, to work correctly and, in fact, are designed that way.

That the President was advised after the fact was a judgement call on the part of the Secret Service. If it happens that they made the wrong decision, the President will handle it. But that’s his business, not mine. The “crisis” was handled. No one died. Everything worked the way it was supposed to work.

And it even gave David Corn the opportunity to take a cheap shot at George Bush today and, I’ll guess, for a great many days in the future. Maybe he’ll give the little scandalette a cute name like “My Pet Bike” and we’ll see it in a Michael Moore movie.

Everyone wins, right?

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin catches the story right from the Post and pegs the “My Pet Goat” comparison right off the bat.