‘Air assault’

August 8, 2006

Over the weekend, Reuters White House correspondent Steve Holland was offered the rare treat of accompanying the president on a challenging bike ride around Bush’s Texas ranch. Holland seemed impressed by the president’s biking skills.

The president set a brutal pace for his accompanying riders, who included two Secret Service agents, White House spokesman Tony Snow and this reporter, who managed to gasp his way through the 12 1/2-mile (20-km) ride.

“What I would give to be 16 again!” Bush yelled out at one point as he mashed the pedals of his Trek bicycle through a wooded area.

In fact, [tag]Bush[/tag] does not ride quietly, constantly shouting out in his Texas twang the names of trees and geographic features and yelling at himself to pedal faster.

“Air assault!” he yelled as he started one of two major climbs, up Calichi Hill, which he named for the white limestone rock from which it is formed.

As Dan Froomkin added, “Yes, he actually yelled out ‘[tag]air assault[/tag].'”

I know someone in my neighborhood who likes to yell out cartoonish phrases while he rides his bike. He’s 11.

He’s a wanker. He’s a twit. Our president, the Twanker.

Probably the same thing he yelled when, as a young drunk, he slowly rode his bike down his parent’s driveway, blocking their car, in a fit of anger.

  • Someone should explain to him that to have an air assault you must first be airborne. Of course it’s entirely possible that Bush is much smarter than we think, and this is yet another instance of the liberal media trying to tear him down. In reality, Bush only yells air assault when he’s flying over the handle bars.

  • Oh, can’t we let Boy George II have even one personal pleasure without critizing? So he rides bikes. Good for him.

    At least when he’s on his bike he’s not making decisions that will ruin American today and for the near future.

  • Of course he wants to be 16 again, that’s when his brain and emotional development stopped.

  • Lance –
    I remember a “personal pleasure” reported about this Wanker-twit. Seems that after ordering the missiles & bombs to rain down on Baghdad, he was pumping his fist & saying something to the effect of “feels good!”

    I’m anti-this-war. War is evil, and sometimes a necessary evil.

    I don’t want babies killed or wounded. I don’t want children killed or wounded. I don’t want civilians killed or maimed. I don’t like populations held hostage by the fighters. But that did not occur to Dubya, it felt good to him.

    I want NOTHING good for him. I want him in jail. I want his followers in jail.

    Thanks for letting me vent.

  • That’s below the belt. I’m 33 and tend to be yappy on a mtn bike, too. It’s a way of getting into the exercise and staying motivated.

    Now, selecting “air assult” as a phrase is indeed a little dorky. But I think that you should be more concerned with the way that Bush rides. 12.5 miles is nothing on a bike. Riding that short and that hard is tough on your knees and doesn’t really do your heart any long term good. Better to ride longer in a lower gear than mash (technical term for climing in too high a gear) the pedals.

    This is an allegory for everything he does: It sure looks impressive, but to those in the know, he’s riding like a pussy.

  • I wonder if he grabs Turd Blossom by the man-boobs and yells “PURPLE-NURPLE!” during strategy sessions. Do you think he plays the repeat everything the other person says game with Shooter? Does he give Condi wet willies on Air Force One?

    Even if he is kidding he is totally inappropriate and immature. Any chances he might drive off a cliff on his bike and put the world out of its misery?

  • This is a little too close to Ronnie’s “the bombing begins in 5 minutes” at a tense time with Russia. Or like Dumbya’s correspondent’s dinner vid about searching for WMB under the sofa cushions.

    That these pampered frat boys and b-actors and their chicken hawk friends think its cool to bandy about military talk. It makes them think they are tougher (compensation issues, anyone?) But the idea of using the term “air assault” as a fun, happy playtime saying for the President of the United States, in the presence of reporters and advisors, when areas of Lebanon, Israel (if drones count, and they should), Iraq and perhaps Afghanistan are at that moment under very real air assaults — probably not a lot of fun-loving kids out riding their bikes in Tyre, Haifa, or Baghdad these days — shows an astounding disconnect, a lack of reflectiveness, a lack of any concern for anyone but himself or his safe-from-harm friends and croneys. It shows an amoral disdain for those who suffer the consequences of his lack of leadership or competence.

    Few things scare me more than the idea of a recklessly immature President who thinks that big shiny red button by his desk is a cool toy, or that big electric map in the command center lets him move a bunch of little green plastic soldiers like he had when he was a kid and could easily replace, or that he can impress the chicks by swinging a few ICBMs around as if he actually had any manhood.

    Yeah, i should probably lighten up. Maybe my mood will improve when BushCo is out of office. For now I just find this stuff offensive.

  • I gotta admit, I’m impressed by a 46 resting heart rate. As for his comments? Well he would RULE in the Special Olympics.

    Daniel’s right though, the world would probably be better off if George did LSD (long slow distance) rather than treating exercise as an assault maneuver. It shows his mentality.

  • “Air assault” is what really resonates for me. The codger can shout all he wants from his bike for all I care, but he has such a flippant attitude concerning all things military and he acts like Iraq, Afghanistan, and the US forces are just toys in his toychest.

    For those who have lost loved ones, war is not a game to be goofed on while riding one’s bike on vacation. This is just another example of his supreme lack of understanding of his job, the war, and the impact his words have.

  • I am utterly amazed that Bush’s bicycle riding is the subject of these diatribes.

  • ” Does he give Condi wet willies on Air Force One?”

    Does he give foreign Heads of State inappropriate backrubs?

    Yes, yes he does…

  • Now this kind of stuff is entertaining, but it’s just gossip column stuff. So what? So what if he likes to talk while he’s biking? The author of the piece is intent on giving us an eerie sense that we’re being ruled by a kid, apparently, but that shouldn’t be news to us. This is the kind of thing that’s all about the politics of the author of the piece — I’ve seen it used to trash people I like — and not about content.

  • What I want to know is if he’s got an old playing card that rubs up against the spokes and makes it sound like a motorcycle.

    That’d be so cool …

  • This is diving way too deep into the wankery, but doesn’t anyone else find it odd to yell, “Air assault!” when you’re about to start up a hill? You yell “Air assault!” when you’re at the top, about to come down on your enemies.

  • RSA, he’d know that, but he missed air assault training day in his Air National Guard stint.

  • Zeitgeist (#8) expresses my thoughts on this perfectly. Thanks for saving me all that typing. For those of you who think that this report is a hatchet job, please remember. This man is the President of the United States, acting like a child while out for a bike ride with a reporter, while the world burns largely because of his incompetency, disregard and narcissism. It’s like we’re ruled by some kind of syphillitic, in-bred monarch.

  • “Air Assault”, in the Army, means assaulting an objective by helicopter.

    It’s the mission that the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) executes.

    As someone who’s extremely anal about using proper military termanology (don’t know why, probably from having to duck walk around the barracks after calling an M-16 a “gun” in basic training), it just rubs me raw when non-military yokels like the Boy King, who like to play soldier, says idiotic shit like that.

    Sorry, just irritates the hell out of me

  • And Catherine, I understand your concern and would be more likely to share it were this attitude not so well corroborated by the WMD comedy skit and the playing guitar in California while New Orleans was destroyed. Oh yeah, and “you’ve covered your ass, you can go now.”

  • Anyone remember a story about the first president Bush playing tennis? Before a really important serve, he would yell out, “Release Chang!” No, no one has any idea why. But it was the single-most dorky, weird thing about a very weird man.

    Add “Air Assault” to the list of indications that the Bush family lives somewhere much, much different from the rest of the world.

  • I don’t begrude “B” his exercise…

    And 12.5 miles is about right for an old overweight weak-kneed guy who was never much of a skill athlete.
    (Ho-hum… I give it a Grade C- , about par with his brain power.)

    No… what I begrude B for his 300+ days on vacation.

    That’s loony.
    I want a working president.
    Someone in the game 24/7/365.

    Crickey.
    You are only president once.
    Who would be stupid enough to waste 13% of that time on vacation?

    All that being said:

    Here is a Tom Tomorrow comic that captures the very essence of the 16 year old “B.”

  • He didn’t mean that he was conducting an air assault. He playfully exclaimed that – OH no! – he and his companions were being assaulted from the air – to encourage them to pedal faster.

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