Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Just say oops

Commentary by Betty Bell


By BETTY BELL

Betty Bell

A few weeks ago the president played the leading role in an incident under the category of sport that happened while en route to the G8 summit in Scotland on a stopover for some playtime. The incident had only minor consequences, so I figure it's OK to carry on about it a bit and see if I can shake it loose from my craw. I'm abashed to admit that it's been there too long.

There aren't many goings-on in the president's daily life that parallel what happens in ours, but outdoorsy things do—they're at the top of most of our resumés. Whether as jock or would-be-jock, or the rare well-rounded and benign good sport ... Sports-R-Us. So it wasn't the actual incident that stuck in my craw, it was the president's telling of it.

The president took his bike with him and we all envy the ease with which he rolled it onto his 747. I packed a bike for shipping once, and once was enough. I was initially surprised he'd take his bike along to that gathering of the Presently Powerful, today's shortened version of the 12 apostles. My surprise was short-lived though, because during the so-far 1,667 days of his presidency (1,253 to go), many thousands of column inches have been devoted to how the president pursues his playtime activities. We do know where he's coming from, and he couldn't find a more empathetic community than ours, though when we come in from the trail or links we don't take a shower and then single-handedly tackle the reconfiguration of the world—we just clink a glass with another happy camper's and recap the great day.

Anyway, there at Scotland's Strathclyde golf course, the president was caroming around on his bike when it suddenly skidded across the rain-slick path smack-dab into the Scottish policeman unfortunately assigned to that wrong place at that wrong time. Notice "it" suddenly skidded. As the president succinctly described it: "The bike came out from under me." An errant bike did the deed with the president but following a jig behind.

The president's doctor wrapped his two bunged-up fingers together, though as luck would have it, the fingers weren't on the hand he uses to sign the many I-take-it-all-back environmental laws. The policeman's trip to the hospital was all expenses paid, and he was soon released to limp away.

If only the president had stopped after he explained how the bike ran out from under him. If only he hadn't followed that with: "When you ride hard on a mountain bike, sometimes you fall. Otherwise you're not riding hard."

Mercy. Imagine yourself there. Imagine the president making that sorry excuse to you. What could you have done in such embarrassment but look at the ground and scuff your toe? Why oh why didn't the president just say oops.

An every-day golf game could put a person in a fix comparable to the president's. Say you're standing at the tee on a par three and you look at the flag and visualize the spot just below it where the ball will land for an uncontested gimmee. You wag your three-iron thinking your buddies are thinking "Tiger," and you take the club-head back low, your head anchored, and you finish with a photo-op follow through, confident you accomplished the 14 things on the check list twixt start and finish. You look up then and see the ball rise at it should, but it makes an awful arc far, far right that lands it in the deep rough.

Would you then say, "Man, this is one defective club!" I don't think so. An oops would cover it. And it's the same when we skid out on our mountain bikes. We get up, dust off, and just say oops, or maybe, "What a klutz!"

Most of us, when we ride a rain-soaked trail, anticipate iffy traction and ease up, quit riding hard. We call it prudence. And we'd see it as especially prudent if we were on our way to an important gathering of the apostles.

I thought Karen Hughes was back on active duty, but if she'd been there she's too savvy to let the president come out with that alibi stuff. Everybody already knows he does everything hard. Remember his running days, back there before his knees went away, how he seemed bent on setting a personal best every time he ran? You can bet on it—if Karen had been in Scotland she'd have said, "Mr. President, just say 'oops.'"




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