Operation bikeride

Top federal officials spent Saturday doing a flu pandemic drill. The President and Vice President stayed away, the former to ride his bicycle (you never forget, I guess), the Vice in a disclosed location for a change (his office). Three excuses were given for Bush's absence:

[White House deputy press secretary Trent] Duffy said Bush would be briefed in detail, but didn't need to take part because his role as director of the effort to prepare and respond is already well-defined.

"The president's been focused on this for years," he said. "It is impossible to have the kind of candor and open discussion and a useful preparedness exercise with the president and/or the vice president in the room." (Jennifer Loven, AP)

". . . his role as director of the effort to prepare and respond is already well-defined." Hahahahahaha. That's a good one.

"The president's been focused on this for years." Stop, stop. I'm laughing so hard I can hardly breathe.

Wow. That's entertainment. But this part is probably more like it:

"It is impossible to have the kind of candor and open discussion and useful preparedness exercise with the president and the vice president in the room,'' Duffy said.

I guess that says it all.

But seriously, folks, did we learn anything? Here's a surprise:

"Quite frankly, I think we did quite well," White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend said of the federal agencies that took part in the exercise. (Reuters)

I'm glad she's being frank with us. But think how much better we could have done if she'd lied!

And how prepared are we? Well, it doesn't matter that much because most of the work will be done by everyone else:

State and local government must take the lead in preparing for a potential outbreak of bird flu, a Bush administration official said today, following a planning exercise on preparedness at the White House. (Bloomberg)

Well, OK. You'd already knew that. Essentially that's what the flu "plan" says. So what were you guys doing, then? And who was in the room? If they aren't saving us from flu, what were they talking about?

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Treasury Secretary John Snow, Federal Reserve Chairman-designate Ben Bernanke, who is currently head of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, and more than a dozen cabinet officers and military generals participated in today's exercise, which focused on the federal government's response to a potential outbreak. (Bloomberg)

Errr. The financial guys and the military? That's what you guys were about? But aren't they a bit "off message?" You mean they finally figured out an influenza pandemic is a bigger threat than bioterrorism?

White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy would not discuss the scenario being used to test the government's response plans, such as whether a bioterrorism component was being considered beyond a natural spread of disease. (Loven, AP)

Meanwhile, the feds will be buying drugs from Big Pharma under some really nice terms (for Big Pharma):

"The most important part of that strategy will be vaccines and anti-virals,'' said Townsend, following today's so-called table-top exercise. "You might think about getting your annual flu shot.'' (AP)

Minor detail. The $7.1 billion Bush wants for "the most important part" has was being held up by the Republican Congress.