WH Pool Report: Mummichog Edition

An especially entertaining White House pool report, filed by a Washington Times reporter (who knew?):

1. Three smoke-belching Marine One Sikorsky choppers came hovering in to Andrews Air Force Base at 9: 45 a.m. on Earth Day. . . Scott McClellan gaggled. . . . He opened with much on Earth Day and, after a spellbinding tutorial on wetlands by James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council of Environmental Quality ("It's great for wildlife!"; see transcript for where money will come from for the newly announced program), McClellan returned . . . (Despite his tielessness, McClellan, who has been coaxed out of wearing button-down collar shirts, was wearing a spread collar. The Fashion Police have been alerted.)

   AF1 landed at 11: 07 and made a U-turn on the narrow runway. A Coast Guard officer with an expansive fruit salad on his chest came down the press aisle carrying the nuclear football. The throng parted. "We always let the football through," one photog said.

   At 11: 13, Bush disembarked, wearing a gray jacket, a blue shirt, dark pants and small hiking boots or, maybe, trail boots. Card and Rove apparently coordinated their outfits; each wore a green jacket, khaki pants and boots. They looked like the Nature network's version of Frick and Frack. . .

   Staff then hustled the pool out. The word "mummichog" (sp?) was overheard as the pool crunched over the salt marsh. Apparently, the president's Earth Day event is to remain secret. Staff promised details; they did not materialize.

   On our way out, Card said loudly, "Mummichog. Mummichog." Could be code. Who knows.

Full report after the jump.

Pool Report #1

April 22, 2004

AAFB to Wells, Maine

Three smoke-belching Marine One Sikorsky choppers came hovering in to Andrews Air Force Base at 9: 45 a.m. on Earth Day. The passengerless decoy looped around the airport's tower and headed back to the west. The other two landed; six Secret Service agents disembarked from one; President Bush, Karl Rove, Andy Card, Scott McClellan etc. from the other.

The president, wearing a bluish-gray suit, white shirt and red tie, strode in his bowlegged Texan way across the tarmac, looking tan and fit and rested. He gave his trademark wave from the top of the stairs to the Little AF1 (perhaps a nod to Earth Day) and ducked in. Wheels up at 10 a.m.; breakfast was a rolled omelet tortilla (a shopping list on a galley door had directed one Air Force One staffer to pick up 17 dozen eggs and some pica de gallo sauce . . . "Shoppers," the note said).

Scott McClellan gaggled.Transcript out. He opened with much on Earth Day and, after a spellbinding tutorial on wetlands by James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council of Environmental Quality ("It's great for wildlife!"; see transcript for where money will come from for the newly announced program), McClellan returned for a few moments before landing. He said the United States would "welcome a U.N. resolution" to encourage more countries to help in Iraq. Throughout the gaggle, McClellan dodged AF1 stewards shuttling dishes and silverware down the narrow aisle, sometimes breaking off for 10-20 seconds in the middle of a sentence, then resuming. (Despite his tielessness, McClellan, who has been coaxed out of wearing button-down collar shirts, was wearing a spread collar. The Fashion Police have been alerted.)

AF1 landed at 11: 07 and made a U-turn on the narrow runway. A Coast Guard officer with an expansive fruit salad on his chest came down the press aisle carrying the nuclear football. The throng parted. "We always let the football through," one photog said.

At 11: 13, Bush disembarked, wearing a gray jacket, a blue shirt, dark pants and small hiking boots or, maybe, trail boots. Card and Rove apparently coordinated their outfits; each wore a green jacket, khaki pants and boots. They looked like the Nature network's version of Frick and Frack.

Bush greeted some people at the bottom of the stairs and, when chatting with a pair of volunteers under the wing, pulled off the difficult "double shoulder pat." He then nodded a lot and smiled. Then left.

The 24-vehicle motorcade snaked through the woods, past small homes and smaller trailers, some with wells out front. Along the route, a few people stood in their driveways and waved. Near the reserve, about 100 people were gathered on both sides of the streets; some signs -- "We Support Bush" and "God Bless Our Troops"; on the other side of the street: "Clear Skies, Bush Lies" and "Our Clean Air Has Been Bushwhacked."

The motorcade drove by the filing center and into the woods, down a muddy path. POTUS and his nature-loving pool then walked down an even muddier path covered with hundreds of pounds of fresh wood chips, which didn't help much. Bush was so far ahead of the pool and the trailing Secret Service agent that he was not seen for several hundred yards. When spied, he was talking with reserve manager Paul Dest and his mother, Barbara Bush, who lives in nearby Kennebunkport. She veered off to chat with Card and Rove near the end of the path, which opened into a clearing, sharing a laugh with the Nature Boys and shouting up to her son: "He's lucky. I was just trying to save him." (No clue what that meant.)

Bush, out of earshot now to your pool, approached a little makeshift table (some plywood held up by sawhorses), turned around and said: "I don't know where mom is." She then hurried up as her little boy said: "Hey mom." He chatted with Curtis Cain and Bob Ludwig (see White House sheet on event participants) about something, then, with mom, moved to his left onto a makeshift walkway constructed of fresh wood (another tribute to Earth Day). As they walked down, mom whispered to son and they both laughed and laughed. Bush looked to your pool and said: "I'm not telling you what she just told me." Your pooler guesses it was something quite complimentary, even laudatory, about the media.

The pool had been told on AF1 that POTUS would join in a water-testing project. Your pool has no clue if he did. First, White House staffers held the writers 100 feet back as the stills stomped over the marshy salt tundra (altering nature for centuries), but then waved us through. When we got near a little dock by a small pond (or perhaps an inlet from the nearby Atlantic Ocean), Bush said to one of four people putting on a show: "What are you doing here?" One woman, reaching in to a white bucket, said they had some "striper bait."

Staff then hustled the pool out. The word "mummichog" (sp?) was overheard as the pool crunched over the salt marsh. Apparently, the president's Earth Day event is to remain secret. Staff promised details; they did not materialize.

On our way out, Card said loudly, "Mummichog. Mummichog." Could be code. Who knows.

The pool walked past a shiny black SUV that had been backed up down the muddy path. A half-dozen Secret Service agents, some with scoped rifles in bags, moved around nervously.

The president stayed down in the area for another 10 minutes before arriving onstage for his speech.