At the station we noticed a lot of police, and the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown came through the station and got on the same train. There were about 8-10 people with him, of which 2 were visibly undercover cops (guns etc). I was in the same coach – and although some seats were reserved and unused, there was no noticable shielding apart from when the train stopped and the cops stood up and double checked tickets

At both stations there were maybe 6 – 10 police officers around, armed – and cars waiting for him as he arrived. I am sure there were undercover cops in amongst regular passengers – but I saw no visible signs of this.

As much as I have no time for him, I was impressed with the complete lack of fuss around him travelling on public transport, it didn’t disturb me or my american colleague who I was travelling with.

He could just be hangin’ with a gaggle of dorks.

Later I passed by the nearby little used Moffat Federal Airfield, and the President’s 747 was parked there along with a C5 cargo plane, so he seems to travel a little lighter at home 8^)

Also, remember the Cheney, for security reasons, sometimes travels inside an air stream trailer that is loaded into a military transport.

Kevitivity: To repeat the point: no, they haven’t. Bush is way off norm.

Monkeyboy, are you kidding about the feces? Because IIRC, Cheney really does travel in an Airstream inside a full-size military transport plane.

Prufrock451, Bush’s domestic travel habits are in fact way out of scale, and everybody knows it. It muddies the issue to compare them with a full-scale Presidential visit to Africa. And by the way, can you tell me where you got those figures?

All day we got to listen to Tears for Fears, Everybody wants to rule the World while the SS searched the buildings for I don’t know what. I am not kidding.

This document (http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1999/eb1092199.htm) is unfortunately from the Senate Republican Policy Committee. I only cite this because it cites a GAO report which I’ve been too lazy to dig up.

It might even have been in a Time Magazine??

When I first heard about it I emailed a blogger in Austria and asked him if it was true that the Austrian media was buzzing about Bush’s portable toilet.

He said it was, though he never provided any links to German language newspaper articles, and didn’t know enough German to google some up.

The thought I had was “Y’know, if someone didn’t care about his life, he could have done just what I did, but his partner could have offed the cop before he even knew what hit him, and I could have taken that Suburban out with a shoulder-fired RPG. I’d be immediately killed or beaten and set to Gitmo, but the president would be dead.”

And that is about the time that it really struck me how stupid it is to even try to fight terrorists. If someone wants you dead more than they want to be alive, you’re as good as dead already. The fact that that asshat is still drawing breath speaks to the infinitesimal risk actually posed by terrorism, because, I think, anybody can be gotten to.

Who said — or even implied — that it would be different?

1) More dogs – he loves animals.

2) Less security – he wouldn’t have made every thinking adult in the world hate him.

So the Metro PD has to close the entire road along his commute. So everytime he drives to work, it costs DC taxpayers $2,000 in police overtime. Good thing DC police have nothing better to do…

Um…that would be his dad!

Hardly. I believe the Canadian prime minister often goes out on the town with one security guard. I’ve also heard the Swiss executives live just like normal citizens, commuting to work alone, hanging out at pubs, etc.

If the president of the US is simultaneously that important and that hated, that he needs a heavily armed entourage of hundreds, something is seriously messed up with the system.