This I liked
Dec. 3rd, 2003 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sombrefanI have no time for Bush, I regard him as a mediocre president at best but I admired his ballsy move to go to Baghdad for Thanksgiving. Took a lot of guts and the secrecy involved was amazing. Hilary jumped on the bandwagon afterwards but that'll not be noticed as much as what Dubya did.
Anyway I was amused by this extract from the BBC's US correspondent.
Much has been written about the astonishing secrecy of the mission - the unmarked car, the baseball cap pulled over the president's face, the fact that his security detail was whittled down to a mere 12 (!), the lights out as Air Force One prepared to land in a Baghdad bristling with shoulder-launch missiles.
The one I liked was the British Airways pilot who almost gave the game away somewhere over the Mediterranean when he looked out of the window and saw the president's distinctive plane with its white body and blue bulge whizzing past.
"I say, are you Air Force One?", he radioed with the crackling collegiality of the skies.
Crackly pause. Then "No sir, we are Gulf Stream Four!" came the curt response and blatant lie. "Ohhh," said the man from BA tartly.
Anyway I was amused by this extract from the BBC's US correspondent.
Much has been written about the astonishing secrecy of the mission - the unmarked car, the baseball cap pulled over the president's face, the fact that his security detail was whittled down to a mere 12 (!), the lights out as Air Force One prepared to land in a Baghdad bristling with shoulder-launch missiles.
The one I liked was the British Airways pilot who almost gave the game away somewhere over the Mediterranean when he looked out of the window and saw the president's distinctive plane with its white body and blue bulge whizzing past.
"I say, are you Air Force One?", he radioed with the crackling collegiality of the skies.
Crackly pause. Then "No sir, we are Gulf Stream Four!" came the curt response and blatant lie. "Ohhh," said the man from BA tartly.
