So our president is watching a football game on TV and he chokes on a pretzel and faints for four seconds. Could have happened to anybody. My question is: Why do we know this? Why did the White House — which has not exactly been a gusher of candor regarding, say, who was on Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force, feel that this had to be reported?
I looked through several news stories and all I find were a few remarks that they announced it because, recently, the office was criticized for not promptly reporting when Bush had some skin cancers removed from his face. This strikes me as someone groping for an explanation. To the extent there was such criticism, it was minor. Remember, Bush is still sitting on that awesome approval rating and Americans overwhelmingly don't care about most issues unrelated to terrorism and the economy. The skin cancer was also something that, since it was on the man's face, would eventually have been noticed…or perhaps the fact that the president had undergone surgery would have leaked, and the rumor mill would have thought it was something more serious. But in the case of l'affaire pretzel, there was no visit to a hospital and the president only suffered a few scratches and bruises which could have been explained a hundred different, less embarrassing ways. Would anyone have screamed "Cover up" if they hadn't reported the fainting and it subsequently got out? My theory is that someone said, "You know, Leno and Letterman have stopped ridiculing Bush since 9/11. Let's give the boys a break and tell them about this because it'll give them a chance to jab him without looking like they're sabotaging the war effort." Because, as far as I can see, they're the only ones to benefit.