A couple of days ago, when DC was briefly thought to be under attack by
a small Cessna, Bush was found to be bicycling in a park near Ft Meade,
Md. This provides evidence that Bush indeed does find ways to get in
some serious cycling outside of his trips to Crawford, and makes time
for it during his busy schedule, taking time in the middle of the day
in the middle of the workweek to train. The Capitol was evacuated,
Laura Bush and Nancy Reagan were sent underground to the White House
bunker, and [censored] Cheney was taken to an undisclosed location. The
Cessna itself came within seconds of being shot down by F-16s scrambled
against it when it failed to respond to radio warnings. At the last
second the Cessna's pilot noticed the flares being fired by the
fighters and followed them to a landing where the pilot and his student
were arrested. Bush, serious cyclist that he is, was not informed that
there were major evacuations under way, or that his wife might have
been in danger, or that a plane was about to be blown out of the sky
over our nation's capital, until after he finished his ride.
I would like to congratulate President Bush on his determination and
concentration on his training; I assume he must have left orders that
he would not be disturbed on his ride because it is, of course,
unimagineable that his staff would have either neglected or avoided
telling him that the threat condition at the White House had been
raised all the way to "Red"- the top of the threat scale. I would also
like to apologize to everyone on this newsgroup for doubting the
President's ability as a mountain biker. It is obvious to me now that
he takes our sport very seriously and places a very high priority on
his training.