Posted 5/08/2005 01:16:00 PM by Douglas

Maybe I was asleep all day on Wednesday, April 29th, but I can find no mention of this from an American media source, yet there's ample reporting from foreign news sources. Why do you think that is?

President George Bush was bundled into an underground bunker, Dick Cheney was evacuated to an "undisclosed location" and heavily armed secret servicemen took up defensive positions when a fast-moving cloud scudded towards the White House, it was reported yesterday.

The cloud that materialised 30 miles south of Washington on Wednesday morning was so dense it triggered radar monitors on the Domestic Events Network, intended to prevent a repeat of the September 11 attacks.

You'd think that a story of the President doing a "duck & cover" drill would warrant at least some airtime. I had to find out about it from my friend in India. But maybe there was some embarrassment about the source of the scare:

As an anti-aircraft missile battery on the roof of a nearby building was raised to the fire position, a Black Hawk helicopter was scrambled to take a look, but saw nothing except some clouds, one of which turned out to be the suspected aggressor.

The customs and border protection agency did not return calls seeking comment yesterday, but a spokesman, Gary Bracken, told the Washington Post that a cloud was to blame. "It does happen," he said. "We have to deal with weather anomalies showing up on the radar screen."

Sleep tight, folks. The most powerful military in the world sometimes confuses clouds with aggression against the executive in chief.