ELECTROMAN TO THE RESCUE!?!

Bush Doesn't Let Blackout Upset Lunch With Troops ( ELISABETH BUMILLER, 8/15/03, NY Times)

President Bush was having lunch with troops at the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station when Joe Hagin, his deputy chief of staff, told him of the massive blackout on the East Coast.

But unlike the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when news of another New York catastrophe sent Mr. Bush on an odyssey on Air Force One, today he continued his lunch and went ahead with plans to attend a $1 million political fund-raiser here this evening. Still, he spent the rest of the afternoon on the phone trying to sort out the damage and the cause of the power failure with his top national security aides.

By late afternoon California time, White House officials said the president had determined that terrorism had most likely not caused the blackout. So after more than four and a half hours of White House silence, Mr. Bush made what was intended to be a reassuring statement to a small group of reporters at the Grand Hyatt hotel here.

"One thing I think I can say for certain is that this was not a terrorist act," Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Bush added that he had "been working with federal officials to make sure the response to this situation was quick and thorough, and I believe it has been."

What was he supposed to do, fly there and fix it himself? And what's with the "intended to be" reassuring statement? Was it not reasssuring? Posted by Orrin Judd at August 15, 2003 9:08 AM