Bush Nearly Blows Himself Up (Not Kidding)

[Lord J Esq]

In tonight's sad-but-true tale, we hear of President Bush, who nearly blew himself up by plugging an electrical cord into a hydrogen tank. The Decider was at the White House, attending the demonstration of an innovate new Ford hybrid electrical / hydrogen car with company CEO Alan Mulally.

Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel tank.

"I just thought, 'Oh my goodness!' So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did.

As you probably know, hydrogen is highly flammable and a single spark in the presence of rich hydrogen concentrations can cause an explosion. (Think "The Hindenburg.") Had Mulally not recognized the danger and intervened, diplomatically guiding the president's hand from the hydrogen to the electricity, the leader of the free world may well have blown himself to bits.

What a fitting allegory of his Iraq war, and really his entire presidency. Good grief, but this is the worst leader we have ever had!

[Hadriel]

This just goes with what I've been saying about hydrogen cars being the solution to most of our problems.  We just need to implement them the right way, y'know?

[nightmare975]

I think it was a terrorist attack. By Iranian terrorists.

Get ready for the war in Iran!

[Kyronea]

I told my parents about this and my dad started a tirade about how this should have occurred and how Bush needs to be taken out by any means necessary and how if he had the opportunity to take Bush out he would do it without a thought. I tried to point out that by doing this he'd be no better than Bush regardless of the reasons but dad would have none of that.

...my dad can be such a fool...

[Ramsus]

Assuming their car is well-designed, I seriously doubt the president would have flipped open the cover for the hydrogen fuel tank, twisted off the cap, and snaked the cord into the tank... Sounds more like an excuse for Mr. Mulally to belittle the president. Notice he was acting on an assumption, and didn't give the president a chance to do anything.

Either that, or the hydrogen fuel hole of theirs is a serious risk to consumers, if the design of the car makes it seem even somewhat similar to the electric plug. Really, they should have an electric cord that comes out of the car itself.

[nightmare975]

Assuming their car is well-designed, I seriously doubt the president would have flipped open the cover for the hydrogen fuel tank, twisted off the cap, and snaked the cord into the tank... Sounds more like an excuse for Mr. Mulally to belittle the president. Notice he was acting on an assumption, and didn't give the president a chance to do anything.

Either that, or the hydrogen fuel hole of theirs is a serious risk to consumers, if the design of the car makes it seem even somewhat similar to the electric plug. Really, they should have an electric cord that comes out of the car itself.

Agreed, this wasn't an attempt at Bush's life, it was an attempt on his intelligence.

[Lord J Esq]

I'm not familiar with the design of the car, particularly the interfaces with the electricity and hydrogen. But I do know three things:

First of all, you don't need a direct connection with mains power to ignite a contained supply of hydrogen. A single spark or arc will do it, and we're all aware how easily that happens when inserting live cords into anything. (Actually that's not quite true; for good reason home and office electrical plugs usually go into the current, but the effect at the junction is the same whether you're plugging a live wire into a dead source, or vice versa.) There was most definitely a good deal of risk of fire, which remains one of the top reasons why hydrogen cars are not in mass production already. Furthermore, if President Bush had succeeded in touching a live wire to a hydrogen outlet, even if no fire had occurred somebody would have realized what had happened, and a scandal would have erupted. Heads would have rolled, maybe there would have been lawsuits too. Ford is in a bad way right now and doesn't need to add to its troubles with a news cycle of "Ford car of future nearly kills president today."

Second of all, Alan Mulally himself is a pretty decent guy. He was CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes out here in Seattle, and had been with Boeing for his entire career before going to Ford. He is an engineer through and through, and, as an engineer myself, I take quite seriously the urgency with which Mulally recognized the danger and intervened--against protocol--to prevent any contact from occurring between the power cord and the hydrogen supply. Good engineers know their shit, and if you ever see one get nervous and agitated while putting on a tech display of his own toys, then you had best make your time.

Third, Mulally was there with his Ford delegation because Ford wanted to build some White House support for their hydrogen hybrid concept. Effectively, Bush was there at Mulally's request--not the other way around. If this incident had been intended to attack the president's intelligence, it would have been in direct contradiction with the business aim of the demonstration. That is more than simply unlikely. That is implausible!

Face it, Republigoons! Your president is not only the most incompetent in this nation's history...he is also the dumbest.

[Ramsus]

I'm not familiar with the design of the car, particularly the interfaces with the electricity and hydrogen. But I do know three things:

First of all, you don't need a direct connection with mains power to ignite a contained supply of hydrogen. A single spark or arc will do it, and we're all aware how easily that happens when inserting live cords into anything. (Actually that's not quite true; for good reason home and office electrical plugs usually go into the current, but the effect at the junction is the same whether you're plugging a live wire into a dead source, or vice versa.) There was most definitely a good deal of risk of fire, which remains one of the top reasons why hydrogen cars are not in mass production already. Furthermore, if President Bush had succeeded in touching a live wire to a hydrogen outlet, even if no fire had occurred somebody would have realized what had happened, and a scandal would have erupted. Heads would have rolled, maybe there would have been lawsuits too. Ford is in a bad way right now and doesn't need to add to its troubles with a news cycle of "Ford car of future nearly kills president today."

Second of all, Alan Mulally himself is a pretty decent guy. He was CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes out here in Seattle, and had been with Boeing for his entire career before going to Ford. He is an engineer through and through, and, as an engineer myself, I take quite seriously the urgency with which Mulally recognized the danger and intervened--against protocol--to prevent any contact from occurring between the power cord and the hydrogen supply. Good engineers know their shit, and if you ever see one get nervous and agitated while putting on a tech display of his own toys, then you had best make your time.

Third, Mulally was there with his Ford delegation because Ford wanted to build some White House support for their hydrogen hybrid concept. Effectively, Bush was there at Mulally's request--not the other way around. If this incident had been intended to attack the president's intelligence, it would have been in direct contradiction with the business aim of the demonstration. That is more than simply unlikely. That is implausible!

Face it, Republigoons! Your president is not only the most incompetent in this nation's history...he is also the dumbest.

You're taking for granted that he just assumed that Bush would go for the nearest plug and try sticking it in. Either he assumed the president was going to do something stupid, or it's really easy to mistakenly put the cord in the wrong spot. Really it sounds like a mix of both, so he took the safest course of action.

There's no basis for the claim that the president nearly blew himself up, because he wasn't given a chance to do anything except pick up an electrical cord and have his hands guided to the right spot.

I'm not doubting that Alan Mulally's preventative actions may have averted some accident, but the media portrayel is misleading at best. The demonstration could have involved anyone else not familiar with the design, and he might have done the same thing to be completely safe.

If it had been anyone else, I doubt anyone would be spinning it into some silly, "What an idiot! He nearly blew himself up," story.

[Lord J Esq]

You're mostly right, but your conclusion is still wrong. When the President of the United States almost immolates himself through sheer stupidity, it's a more important story than if Billy Yokel down the street almost does so.

The semantics of the word almost are not really the issue. How close did he come to it? Probably not very close. How close did he come to it? Probably way too close.

[Ramsus]

"When the President of the United States almost immolates himself through sheer stupidity."

Explain when he did that. He picked up an electric cord. That was all he did.

You're saying that he almost blew himself up because he could have put it too close to the hydrogen, but that's an unfounded assumption. He was never given the opportunity. Just because someone stepped in to make certain that he didn't get the opportunity says nothing as to what he would have really done. If anything, it just means you and Mr. Malally share the same assumptions about the president. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Kyronea]

You have to admit, Ramsus, even if it is an assumption it is based on observable fact that George W. Bush is not exactly the brightest bulb in the box. He's not downright stupid, either, but it is the kind of mistake he might make...and to be honest it's one many of us might make as well.

Despite that, I don't think Malally was assuming Bush would be stupid enough to do it so much as he decided it was better not to risk the possibility. I can definitely understand that, as should most of us in one sense or another.

[Lu Su]

Assuming their car is well-designed, I seriously doubt the president would have flipped open the cover for the hydrogen fuel tank, twisted off the cap, and snaked the cord into the tank... Sounds more like an excuse for Mr. Mulally to belittle the president. Notice he was acting on an assumption, and didn't give the president a chance to do anything.

Either that, or the hydrogen fuel hole of theirs is a serious risk to consumers, if the design of the car makes it seem even somewhat similar to the electric plug. Really, they should have an electric cord that comes out of the car itself.

Agreed, this wasn't an attempt at Bush's life, it was an attempt on his intelligence.

what intelligence? O.o

[ZeaLitY]

[Ramsus]

You have to admit, Ramsus, even if it is an assumption it is based on observable fact that George W. Bush is not exactly the brightest bulb in the box. He's not downright stupid, either, but it is the kind of mistake he might make...and to be honest it's one many of us might make as well.

Despite that, I don't think Malally was assuming Bush would be stupid enough to do it so much as he decided it was better not to risk the possibility. I can definitely understand that, as should most of us in one sense or another.

Would you like to be ridiculed for all the bad choices you could have made, but never had the chance to, based simply on the shared assumption that it was what you would have inevitably done?

The problem here is that people are speaking of a hypothetical situation so matter of factly. Nobody is thinking critically about who wrote the article, whether or not it would have been dangerous or just looked embarrassing if he tried plugging it in the wrong spot, and what the claim that he almost blew himself up is even founded on.

They're just glancing over the content and assuming the president nearly blew himself up, but was swiftly saved by someone they can relate to as a fellow intellectual.

Hell, I bet there wouldn't even have been any danger if he had plugged it into the wrong spot. For one thing, hydrogen is only dangerous when mixed with oxygen, and even when it burns it's not as dangerous as, say, gasoline. I'm sure they could have easily made the hydrogen tank fairly safe and idiot-proof. Mr. Mulally may simply have been saving Bush the same sort of embarrassment he suffered when he tried going out of some locked doors at a press-conference in China.

How do you know the whole "blowing up" part isn't just sensationalism? How do you know Mulally wasn't just lightheardedly joking about a possibly silly situation to someone and had his words placed into the context of the car possibly blowing up by the writer?

This is why I hate the media, and why I hate media followers even more.

[Kyronea]

Would you like to be ridiculed for all the bad choices you could have made, but never had the chance to, based simply on the shared assumption that it was what you would have inevitably done?

The problem here is that people are speaking of a hypothetical situation so matter of factly. Nobody is thinking critically about who wrote the article, whether or not it would have been dangerous or just looked embarrassing if he tried plugging it in the wrong spot, and what the claim that he almost blew himself up is even founded on.

They're just glancing over the content and assuming the president nearly blew himself up, but was swiftly saved by someone they can relate to as a fellow intellectual.

That's true. It's how humanity works...we rarely think things through fully. I apologize, but I had accepted the article based on my opinion of Lord J's credibility, as he was the one who presented the article. I shall henceforth not make such an assumption.

Hell, I bet there wouldn't even have been any danger if he had plugged it into the wrong spot. For one thing, hydrogen is only dangerous when mixed with oxygen, and even when it burns it's not as dangerous as, say, gasoline. I'm sure they could have easily made the hydrogen tank fairly safe and idiot-proof. Mr. Mulally may simply have been saving Bush the same sort of embarrassment he suffered when he tried going out of some locked doors at a press-conference in China.

How do you know the whole "blowing up" part isn't just sensationalism? How do you know Mulally wasn't just lightheardedly joking about a possibly silly situation to someone and had his words placed into the context of the car possibly blowing up by the writer?

I don't, and now that I think about it, you're more likely right than wrong. I allowed my distaste of this President to colour my opinion.

This is why I hate the media, and why I hate media followers even more.

Aye...I am usually right there with you, but sometimes even I falter. Of course, so do you, as does anyone who hates the media...as I said before, it's simply human of us.