Saw President Bush's plane (response to "Saw J.T.'s Plane")

Mxsmanic wrote:
Gig 601XL Builder writes:

But while sovereign immunity has been reduced much over the years
national security issues is one place where it still carries some
weight and I see no court deciding that protection of the President
should be secondary to some commercial loss.

Why not? The USA is a democracy, and the President is only one part
of a government that employs a balance of powers. This being so,
there's a limit to the President's importance to the nation, and
therefore a limit to the measures that can reasonably be justified to
protect him. The constant inflationary spiral of these measures has
to stop somewhere. Bringing a city to a halt is not really
justified, not even for the President.



First off no, the USA isn't and never was. It is a representative republic.
The President and Vice President are the only two representatives who are
elected by the entire electorate. That does give them a certain higher
standing than the other members of our government.

But that aside the majority of the citizens of the US feel that the POTUS is
of significant enough importance to allow those who are charged with his
well being a certain latitude in his protection. While a individual or even
many individulas might have in the past or in the future suffer some
financial loss due to the steps required to protect the POTUS it pales in
comparison to the loss that would be suffered by many, many people should he
be killed, especially should that attack be part of a larger attack on our
country. The loss may well be caused by purely emotional reactions but that
doesn't make the loss any less.

Bringing a city to a halt is, to say the least, a little overstated. Bush
was here in little old El Dorado Arkansas (pop. ~20k) before the last
election. The town didn't come to a halt. A matter of fact if you weren't in
a 4 block radius of where he was speaking you wouldn't have known he was in
town. As a matter of fact I went to the airport where AF1 was sitting
(though it wasn't the 747 it was a 757)and was allowed inside the fence and
allowed to go to my hanger. There was a police officer there who asked why I
was there. When I pointed to the airplane tires in the back of my truck and
to my hanger he said, "Have a nice day and please leave via this exit." This
was mainly because AF1 was parked 50 yards from the other exit and I would
have had to drive past it.

As far as the limit to the POTUS's importance to the US, yes there is a
limit as there is a limit to what can be done to protect him. But, at least
at this point the general public doesn't think that limit has been exceeded.

Keep in mind that even though you are making great headway in the
competition there are still a lot more people that would want to do harm to
the POTUS than there are that want to do so to the average citizen.