The dust has barely settled in New York, and the aides of George Bush are busy putting things right.
Unfortunately they're not busy finding out what happened or sending the president before the cameras
to answer questions from the press. Nope, they're using the terrorist attacks on the United States to
re-sell George Bush to us in the face of declining polls.

Let's call it "Operation Manhood". Yesterday morning while the country looked to Washington for hope
and information, instead we got the spectacle of George Bush being ferried all over the country like a
high end version of Road Rules. For twelve hours he bounced from Florida to Lousiana to Nebraska
to DC like he was on a scavenger hunt for courage. Finally he showed up in Washington to deliver a typical deer-in-the-headlights string of platitudes, apparently picked up at a Nebraska Rotary prayer luncheon.
Meanwhile, New York and the Pentagon burned.

When columnists such as the New York Time's Maureen Dowd and William Safire, as well as a few scattered
cable talking heads delicately suggested that maybe the President should have come straight back to Washington
and acted like the leader of a great country, the great Karl Rove-Karen Hughes Bush-image roadshow groaned to life.

Suddenly, we are told, the Secret Service had information that the White House and Air Force One were the next
targets in a conspiracy that they no knowledge of until people started dying 45 minutes prior.  Apparently bringing
Air Force One into Washington DC was dangerous because those wily Middle Eastern  terrorists had the advanced
capability of chasing it down from behind in their lumbering hijacked jumbo jets.  It would appear that all of our fighter
jets at Andrews Air Force base were in the shop and couldn't provide cover. So while people died, buildings collapsed,
and America looked to it's leadership for answers and assurance,  George Bush went on a 12 hour aerial
Home to the Heartland tour.

Operation Manhood commenced this morning when he spoke to the nation with his National Security team
in full silent view, infering that he had everything under control and those other guys were just along for the ride.
This afternoon, the White House started rolling out the spokepeople from Ari to Mindy to John Ashcroft to tell us
that they had really, really, really good sources telling them what the terrorists were going to do next.
That George Bush isn't the Coward in Chief. That, according to a now groveling and contrite William Safire,
Bush wasn't going to be chased away from Washington by any "tinhorn terrorists" (Safire didn't indicate whether
Bush followed this with "dad-gummit!"). But, alas, the Secret Service forced the issue. We were also told the
White House wasn't safe, but Ari Fleischer couldn't answer why it was safe enough for Dick Cheney.
For those who watched the press conference, Ari took a flop sweat shower in front of the whole country.
Later today Bush ventured outdoors where he did a photo-op at the Pentagon, and hemmed and hawed
for a few minutes about bravery and other things he's read about.

If all of this wasn't enough, now Safire's "sources"  (one of whom, he admits, is Karl Rove) have indicated that
the terrorists knew lots of secret stuff about Air Force One and White House procedures which can only mean
one thing...a "mole" in the White House, or Secret Service, or the FBI, CIA, etc etc. This just happens to be a
Bill Safire obsession that the White House is playing on. The subtext here is, of course, somehow it's Clinton's fault.

Now we understand. Apparently everyone in the whole world knows that Bush is a hero among heroes, and only
he can bring us through this horrible tragedy. That's why there are spies in the White House plotting against him, and
terrorists hijacking planes with full tanks of gas so they can chase him around the sky. It's all about the Bush.
He is THE MAN. Without his steady hand at the helm, we are doomed to chaos.

So, while we dig through the rubble, patch the bleeding, pick up the pieces, and wonder what has become of a
world that seemed so different two day ago, one thing is certain: George Bush has officially started his campaign
for 2004, "tinhorn terrorists" or not...