They asked what?!
Secret Service: Hey V-DOT, would you mind if we closed down the HOV lanes for six hours on Wednesday?
V-DOT: For What?
Secret Service: Well, *wink*, I understand that a certain world leader will be travelling that day and might like to make use of it.
V-DOT: The President wants to close 395 South’s HOV lanes during rush? Are you high? He may be the leader of the Free World, but this is Rush Hour, dammit.
Secret Service: But, but, but, he’s the President of the United States.
V-DOT: So? 8600 cars have to make their way home tonight. His poll numbers suck enough without 25,000 more people hating him, don’t you think?
Secret Service: Well, he’s the President and Senator Allen needs him at a fundraiser.
V-DOT: Did you even talk to the Allen campaign about this? I just talked to his campaign manager. He said: “We would not have supported such a proposal. Oh my Lord. Wow. No. Not aware of any such proposal. Certainly grateful it didn’t happen that way.” Don’t you guys have helicopters?
Secret Service: Okay, fine. Be that way.
As if I didn’t already think he was a portentous arse…
What kills me most about it is that he was going to Mount Vernon! Couldn’t he take the GW Parkway for that? What a bunch of frickin’ idiots.
Yeah, the whole things stinks to high heaven. If this’d happened, it would have been a PR nightmare, both for the Bush camp, but also for the already flailing Allen camp.
Sadly, this is a common occurence back in my home country: http://karachi.metblogs.com/archives/2006/04/vvip_movement_c.phtml
Not sure why he doesn’t use a helicopter instead.
“White House spokeswoman Dana Perino referred calls to the Secret Service, saying the president’s staff stays out of such decisions and leaves them to the security experts. Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin said that “certainly, closing down the HOV was one of the options that was being discussed.”
Secret Service is Secret Service, no matter who is the POTUS. But what can I say, Bush is an easy target these days. Reading the first comment, you would think that Bush personally came up with this idea.