What do you do when you are in an accident with the motorcade? Ask an elderly man and woman in Maryland. And President Bush gave GOPers a much needed pep talk.
"Potus strode briskly across the enormous plant floor as his guides explained what was going on. Plant workers gawked from a distance as potus walked through. His first stop was to inspect a hybrid engine that was on display for the occasion. It is the same engine that will be in the saturn aura, which goes on the market shortly. The conversation was out of earshot but potus nodded as the mysteries of the hybrid were explained. Potus then shook hands with several plant workers, and threw his arm around another as a gaggle of co-workers looked on approvingly." -- Michael Fletcher, Washington Post
"A wild ride through the snow to Camp David. Left White House at 2:12 pm and the motorcade wove in and out of bumper to bumper traffic in rain and sleet, often using breakdown lanes. At 3 pm, just south of the Urbana exit in Frederick County the motorcade was involved in an accident when a motorcade suv and a private car spun off he road into the median strip. The potus vehicle not involved and we continued without stopping into steady snow to Thurmont without further incident." -- Jack Farrell, Denver Post
"Brian Cole of Fox News was in the front passenger seat of our van and describes accident this way: 'we were on the right shoulder...it looked as if the motorcade suv either slid or tried to avoid something, careened across the interstate and hit a car in the left lane and pushed it' into the median. The motorcade did not stop so we cannot say if there were injuries but the photos of the car taken as we went by do not show extensive damage. I cannot say how fast we were going at the time of the accident. we were hitting 60 or 55 mph at times. But brian estimates we were at 30 mph when accident took place. The second press van turned back at that point and passed the site and emailed us to say there apppeared to be two people in the hit car -- an elderly man and woman and that afp and getty photogrphers in that van got photo of driver out of car talking with man from white house suv. They saw no ambulances at that time. We were on 270 south of urbana exit when the accident took place." -- Farrell
"They shook hands. Bush got a standing ovation and launched into a pep talk aimed at the depleted GOP ranks in the House. 'I thank you all for recognizing that it's in the best interest of the United States of America that John Boehner become the next speaker of the House of Representatives,' said Bush, who had lunched with the Democratic speaker earlier today. Notes that he once lost a West Texas congressional race and bounced back to become president. 'The key is to learn from every election and to come back stronger, and with your help that's exactly what we're going to do in 2008. ... I believe that we can retake the Senate and the House and hold the White House in 2008." -- Todd Gillman, Dallas Morning News
