Bush's night out: The pool report

by Mark Silva

Here's my evening "pool report'' from a cool night out with the president of the United States, attending a closed-door $500,000 fundraiser for the Republican Party's congressional campaigns at the suburban Virginia spread of a party loyalist:

This report contains one really large bush trimmed in the shape of a poodle or terrier or maybe both, $500 K raised by the RNCC with the help of President Bush and no news at all, nothing worth reading really, save for gratuitous color commentary on a nice night out in Virginia.

In this nation addicted to oil, three black vans departed from the White House at 4:32 pm EDT with a mission of delivering a travel pool to sit outside a closed-door fundraiser in Fairfax.

The president would find his way there aboard Marine One. The pool thinks it knows the preferred rush-hour conveyance.

The closed-to-press fundraiser was held for the benefit of the National Republican Congressional Committee. The hosts were Milton and Carolyn Peterson. The NRCC said 130 were expected at the reception, and a little over 500,000 USD was raised.

Your pool van caravan rode the HOV lanes down I-395 at a fair rate of speed and then out the Fairfax County Parkway at an even better clip.

Up Ox Road we went, like the wagon trains of old. Move em move em move em. And then on Braddock Road west of George Mason University, where the vans turned into the crunchy-gravel West Campus Parking Lot where other elements of a real motorcade, the limos and all, were parked.

It was 5:20 pm EDT at our arrival, cool, crisp and only partly cloudy and definitely not in a traditionally defined recession yet, and, friends, the excitement was mounting by the minute. We waited, motors running, glug glug glug, for the landing of Marine One on a lush soccer pitch, green as the cash the RNCC was raising this evening.

Marine One landed on the pitch at 6 pm, bathed in the warm light of the sinking sun on a cool evening. With a salute and a wave, the president stepped out in a dark blue suit, light blue shirt and red tie and walked across the grass and out the gate of the black chain link fence surrounding the field and climbed into a limo. The now complete
motorcade rolled straight out and across the road into a subdivision on the south side of Braddock Road. It was called Brecon Ridge.

Get it?

One woman stood on the long lawn of her brick home and held a large American flag for the passing POTUS, and other families, with many children assembled, stood at the grassy swale and waved flags and cheered aloud here in the land of the three-car garages.

The motorcade arrived at 6:18 at Chez Peterson, a sprawling modern ranch of stained wood siding with a lovely glassed porch looking out into undeveloped woods behind it and a large pond beneath the hilltop house - the hillside planted in white and pink azaleas. To the side of the house, a garden contains a number of really large bushes - one clipped in the shape of a dog, six feet tall. Now, the body and legs say
poodle, but the tail says terrier.

There was another tall bush cut in the shape of the abominable snowman, arms outstretched.

Many cars were parked on a lawn along the drive leading to the house. The acreage here, at least the mowed acreage, seemed about 10. We heard the honking of Canada geese on the pond, which also featured a waterfall, with the sun over the tall hardwood trees casting all of this in a lovely light.

The festivities appeared to be unfolding inside the house, because all we heard was geese.

The sun was sinking behind the trees as the motorcade rolled out earlier than expected, at 7:12 pm, passing by the more modest one-acre lots of the neighbors, the kids with flags still standing there and waving, nay, screaming, goodbye.

The motorcade sped back to the soccer fields, where a game or practice was underway on a far field and the players paused to watch the incoming motorcade.

The president boarded Marine One, with the setting sun reflecting on the fuselage, and the bird launched at 7:20 pm.

And your humble vanacade of poolers was left to find its way back to town - we also noticed on the way out an exodus of cars from Brecon Ridge.

President's gone, party's over.