Last week when the White House and Capitol were evacuated thanks to the Cessna scare, I was willing to cut Mr. Bush a little slack for being out bicycling at the time. After all, I’m not one to fault a guy for being out cycling on a nice day. Granted, we’re talking about the supposed most powerful man in the world here, not your average Joe. But whatever.
But today I learn that our “Commander in Chief” wasn’t even aware that (1) 30,000 people in D.C. (including his wife) had been evacuated, (2) the continuity of government plan was initiated, and (3) fighter jets had been scrambled, until 36 minutes after the “all-clear” had given!
Despite the 9/11 Pet Goat fiasco (or more accurately, because of it) this is stunning. You’d think the White House handlers would have learned a lesson and at least attempted to portray the president as being “in charge.” But I guess if you’re in a situation where seconds count, there’s only time for the most essential tasks.
It’s nice to see that the Secret Service did their job and took care of the most essential elements in the Executive Branch during a potential crisis. You know, the people who are really in charge. Meanwhile, I’m sure Mr. Bush enjoyed a nice, peaceful bike ride.
UPDATE: Commenters at AMERICAblog are contending this only illustrates that the Cessna scare wasn’t a real emergency. Maybe so. At the time, I thought all the brouhaha was an overreaction to a high-flying Cessna, but I’m not a terrorism security expert. At any rate, if the Secret Service is evacuating people (warranted or not), the president should know what’s going on. It’s that simple.

I’m not an authority on parenting. And, sadly, don’t even possess a great deal of expertise on “courting.” But this whole mindset seems rather bizarre quaint to me:

I define courtship as the discovery of a life-partner for a daughter under the direct oversight of the father. Any man seeking to beg, borrow or steal a daughter’s hand without her father’s endorsement is seeking to gain, in unlawful ways, “property” not his own. Daughters are Daddy’s girls in the objective sense, and this particular daughter rejoices in that truth. I am owned by my father. If someone is interested in me, he should see him.

Suffice it to say, an awful lot of women have gotten themselves in bad situations by taking these beliefs too literally.
More commentary here and here.

In the newsprint business, there are mistakes and there are mistakes. There’s your typical typos, misspellings, and misidentified photos . . . and then there’s this:

Newsweek magazine said on Sunday it erred in a May 9 report that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to the victims of deadly Muslim protests sparked by the article.
Editor Mark Whitaker said the magazine inaccurately reported that U.S. military investigators had confirmed that personnel at the detention facility in Cuba had flushed the Muslim holy book down the toilet.
The report sparked angry and violent protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan to Indonesia to Gaza.
. . .
On Sunday, Afghan Muslim clerics threatened to call for a holy war against the United States.
“We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst,” Whitaker wrote in the magazine’s latest issue, due to appear on U.S. newsstands on Monday.

Yeah. Sorry about all those dead people. Next time we’ll try to make sure our sources are credible.
UPDATE: Upon further review, it’s unclear who’s telling the truth here. Looks like this one is best read in government-skepticism mode.

Fox News style.
In fairness to FNC, when the chaos of a breaking news story hits, a news organization goes into FIFR (first in, first reported) mode–similar to what they do when school/business closings start rolling in. Since the dedicated RNC fax line is probably the one closest to the on-air studio (for convenience), that news would naturally get out immediately after reports from the White House and Congress.

. . . is elementary school recess made out to be a form of religious persecution.
In claiming that students should apparently be allowed to do whatever they please during recess time, a guy says:

“I think we understand that the school does not have a monopoly over children. They’re not robots,” he said.

Does the school treat students as “robots” by having them sit at desks? Or by imposing a class schedule? What about that whole classroom standards thing? Sounds pretty robotic to me.
An elementary school isn’t out of bounds in developing a program which encourages physical activity. Especially given the child obesity problem we have today.