The President walks into a bar...

[Waverly]

Some unlucky staffer is out of a job. This president doesn’t go anywhere unless the crowd is properly screened and prepped. I think what you saw is the country’s reaction when the reaction isn’t carefully choreographed.

[Lissa]

@Liberal

President Bush in Peoria

I neat little factoid I learned was that the president is almost never carried in the car of singular quality. For example, two limos, but 8-10 black SUV’s, typically the president is carried in one of those, or another car of multiple numbers. Sometimes, they will go into a parking garage, stop for second, move the president to the limo, then proceed so he can make the entrance in the limo. Secret Service security is really neat.

[elucidator]

I still find it hard to believe. Approval, disdain, lynch mob, all of those responses make sense. But to pay no attention? Very strange.

[Cervaise]

@Liberal

Such sanctuaries are often referred to as “Emerald City”.

Let’s split the difference and send him to the Green Zone.

[wring]

@Cervaise

Let’s split the difference and send him to the Green Zone.

the green zone is for loading and unloading only

[ElvisL1ves]

@elucidator

But to pay no attention? Very strange.

I didn’t think so. The people’s reactions in the story looked to me to be cold shoulders. The similarity in appearance is superficial only.

[Der_Trihs]

@Vinyl Turnip

That sounds eerily like an SNL sketch from the 80’s, in which Bush père (Dana Carvey), whose approval ratings were also tanking, went into a diner with his Secret Service detail to try to muster up support—and met with a similarly chilly reception. He wandered around uncomfortably, muttering something like “hello there… Desert Storm… hi, how are you doing today…Desert Storm…” and every few seconds asked his aide if it were time to leave yet.

Wonder if Dubya ever saw that sketch.

I doubt it, the way he isolates himself. This is a man who was unaware that things were bad after Katrina until his staffers cobbled together a special DVD just for him.

@elucidator

I still find it hard to believe. Approval, disdain, lynch mob, all of those responses make sense. But to pay no attention? Very strange.

They probably realized that if they showed criticism or disdain or hostility they’d be hustled off, and shot if they tried a lynch mob; for those who disapprove of him that leaves ElvisL1ves’s cold shoulder.

[eleanorigby]

Makes me proud to be from IL. Well done, down-staters! (actually Peoria is about an hour from me, but in terms of outlook and lifestyle, it might as well be far, far away…)

[interface2x]

@wring

the green zone is for loading and unloading only

I think it’s fair to say we’d be unloading him.

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

I guess it’s time to disinter that Nixon-era joke, put a new coat of paint on it, and set it going again:
Q. Would you have sex with Bush if it would end the Iraq War?

A. Yes – but only if he agrees to immediate withdrawal.

[elucidator]

I’d probably be willing to take a bullet for my country, but there are limits.

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

@elucidator

I’d probably be willing to take a bullet for my country, but there are limits.

What if he agreed to be the bottom?

[elucidator]

Is there a drug for erectile revulsion?

[jayjay]

@elucidator

Is there a drug for erectile revulsion?

Yep. Comes in six-packs.

[Princhester]

@elucidator

I still find it hard to believe. Approval, disdain, lynch mob, all of those responses make sense. But to pay no attention? Very strange.

You know that feeling you get when someone you know has done something you don’t like and you know if you speak to them, the subject may come up and you don’t go want to go through the awkwardness of having to either lie or have a confrontation so you just try to avoid having a conversation with them?

[VinylTurnip]

@jayjay

Yep. Comes in six-packs.

Colloquially known as “Bush goggles.”

[betenoir]

Funny think is, there’s a bit on Snopes about a e-mail going around that shows Kelly looking like he’s sitting by himself, and text saying he was roundly snubbed by the troops who wouldn’t even eat with him.

Problem is he had spent the trip out in the feild talking to the troops, had deleived an adress to severl hundred of them and the night befor had ate at a table with ten soilders looking for their thoughts on what needed to be done. They just snapped him when he took a minute to seet down with the press corp and update them.

No snubb in evidence. Oh irony.

[Liberal]

I’m not sure you can compare Kelly to Butch.

[lieu]

While I might find the realization of one of Dan Jenkin’s stages of drunkeness (invisible) amusing in some, with this 'un it’s potentially, given past implied permissions, beyond unsettling.

If I recollect, another stage was Fire up the Enola Gay.

[Garfield226]

Hate to poop on everybody’s parade with actual facts n’ stuff, but if you’d all like to come down off Mount High-N-Mighty Librul for a second …

From the local paper:

One day after the president’s visit, business at Sterling Family Restaurant was booming.

Antoinette Atchley, one of the waitresses who served Bush and his party, said the restaurant has become a bit of a novelty.

“It was quite a bit more busy today, and of course everybody was talking about it, ‘Where did he sit? What did he eat? Was this the chair he sat in?’” Atchley said. “Everybody was taking turns sitting in the chair, we all know where it was - it was awesome, even still a day later my heart is racing.”

And here:

“You know, he might be the most down-to-earth president this country has ever had,” said Bob Smith, who is a member of the Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame for his lengthy run as a successful area high school and college football coach. "I told him I was a retired football coach, the proud father of

a recon Marine and to keep up the good work. On the way out he said ‘How ya doing, Coach.’ He remembered what we talked about."

Trilikis said he was notified Tuesday morning about the presidential stop during a visit from a Secret Service agent. The president’s visit, and subsequent media flood, had the happy owner speaking poetry.

“Nothing but a dream, but it’s real,” he said. “I’m flying on the sky with no wings.”

The Alveys sat at the second table that Bush joined. He autographed children’s books that Stephanie Alvey brought in to keep her children occupied, though he stopped when he saw one was a library book.

“He said, ‘I can’t sign that one,’” Stephanie Alvey said. “I assured him it was fine. I’m a stay-at-home mom. Normally Play-Doh is about as exciting as my day gets.”

Roger Alvey had a gap in his memory of the visit.

“My wife asked if I shook the president’s hand,” he said. “I said I had no idea.”

News video proved he had.

“Thank goodness I at least had it together enough to do that,” he said.

So, sorry to ruin that for you… Now back to your regularly scheduled Bush-bash.