I'll never forget my thoughts as I watched Air Force 1, with former
President Clinton aboard, as it "held short" for about five minutes at
Andrews, right after President Bush was sworn in.

I had an intense mental image of two guys in the cockpit trying to plug that
GPSMAP 12 into the cigarette lighter, and jiggling the the eight power cords
velcroed to the panel to see which one wasn't plugged in right.

Les


wrote in message
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Blueskies wrote:
"john smith" wrote in message
. ..

I would be pretty cool to buzz the beach with a 747 (Bush did it today)

back OT

I can't imagine what those folks on the ground thought; look, there goes
AF1, I wonder if he has any fresh water? Is
that thing air-conditioned? Maybe they'll drop some food?

One person I saw interviewed on the news said it was a sign of hope for
them that "they know what's happening here." If the President is flying
over, then surely help can't be too far away.

AF1 is probably one of the most potent icons of the American nation out
there. No matter where you are in the world, when people hear a plane
and look up, and realize that it's AF1, everything stops. She's a
symbol not of her individual passengers with all their well-documented
flaws, but of the Presidency as an institution. How many times has a
blue-and-white bird been the backdrop of an indelible image?

-cwk.