President Bush and His Toy Car
The front page of yesterday’s Times offered a photo of President Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown merrily golf-carting around Camp David. We glanced at the shot, amused by the cowboy president’s attempt to do his squinty-eyed tough-guy look while piloting a conveyance most often used on the manicured fairways of Shinnecock or in the retirement communities of Boca. We were about to flip the page when we noticed something: A placard on the front of the vehicle labels it “Golf Cart One.” We chuckled to ourselves, and we thought that it’s sort of the perfect presidential vehicle for this particular commander-in- chief, for his underpowered golf cart of a presidency. Then we got worried; were we being unfair? Perhaps this isn’t Bush obnoxious frat-boy humor (“I’m the president, and it’s my golf cart, so it’s Golf Cart One. Heh heh heh.”) but rather a longstanding tradition. So we asked President Clinton’s spokesman. Did that administration, too, call the presidential scooter “Golf Cart One”? The e-mailed reply came late in the day: “Nope.” Good.
