It hasn’t been a great couple of weeks for the people who are supposed to keep the President safe. First there was the potential terrorist attack that wasn’t as important as Bush’s bicycle ride :
The White House launched an investigation Thursday into the 47- minute delay in notifying President Bush about the intrusion of a single- engine aircraft into restricted airspace over the nation’s capital that provoked emergency evacuations.
The violation of the no-fly zone Wednesday led more than 30,000 people to quickly leave the White House complex, the Capitol and the Supreme Court and triggered an eight-minute-long “red alert” at the White House.
At the time, Bush was riding a bicycle at a wildlife center in suburban Maryland and wasn’t told of the alert until after he had completed his ride at 12:50 p.m. — 47 minutes after the “red alert” was issued and 36 minutes after an all-clear.
. . .
McClellan said Secret Service agents accompanying Bush to the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Beltsville, Md., and the uniformed military aide who accompanies the president with the nuclear warfare launch codes had been in touch with authorities at the White House during the scare.
And now we find out that the “dud” grenade in Georgia was an assassination attempt :
The FBI said on Wednesday a grenade thrown at President George W. Bush during a visit to Georgia last week had been a threat to the American leader and had only failed to explode because of a malfunction.
In a statement, a Federal Bureau of Investigation official at the U.S. embassy said the grenade, thrown while Bush made a keynote speech in Tbilisi’s Freedom Square on May 10, had been live and landed within 30 metres (100 feet) of the president.
. . .
The FBI’s statement contradicted an account by Georgian police at the time who said the grenade was a dud, left at the spot to sow panic among the tens of thousands who turned out to greet Bush.A White House spokesman also said then that Bush, who had visited the ex-Soviet republic to show support for its pro-Western government, had never been in danger.
These security guys had better watch their backs. If they continue screwing up this bad they might end up getting nominated for an ambassadorship or something.