<html> Bush's Blackout: A Salty Story with Many Twists  By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, January 15, 2002; 9:00 AM <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47813-2002Jan15.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47813-2002Jan15.html</a> It all seems perfectly straightforward. George Bush choked on a pretzel. He fainted. Now he's all right. But what do we really know about the incident? Could there be some kind of hidden scandal – a top-secret Pretzelgate? What kind of pretzel was it? Could there be another explanation for that big fat bruise on his face? Was he really watching football? Where exactly was Laura at the time? Have Barney and Spot been deposed? Any chance al Qaeda was involved? Don Imus offered the president some advice: "You've just simply got to admit what happened. You say 'Look, I had a couple of pops and I just shouldn't have done it.' . . . He shouldn't be drunk at the White House." He was kidding. Right? ABC's medical editor, Tim Johnson, dismissed the pretzel attack as "a very common cause of fainting," according to the political Hotline. "Fainting is very common in healthy people. . . . Certainly doesn't sound like any kind of stroke." "But he had complained of cold or flu," Diane Sawyer said. "What does that say to you? Is it possible there was some hidden heart problem? Everyone will worry about stroke." "I think it's highly unlikely that the fact that he was complaining about a cold or the flu would have any impact on his heart," Johnson said. NBC's Robert Bazell was more suspicious: "The episode itself was not so dangerous. The real issue is whether the president has another underlying problem other than what the doctors have said. The fact that he bruised his lip and his chin is very important because it means that when he fell down he didn't protect himself, he hit his face flat on the carpet. It doesn't mean that he hurt himself when that happened, but it does mean that he passed out completely cold. . . . "The idea that a pretzel makes someone pass out is a kind of peculiar explanation, number one. . . . You just don't see people who are athletic pass out all the time." On Fox, Fred Barnes said: "Look at some of the suspicious things. One, nobody was there." "There is a history of White Houses not being fully forthcoming about a president's health," said NPR's Mara Liasson. On CNN, Joe Lockhart told Wolf Blitzer that the White House should make Bush's physician available to reporters. Bush made light of the incident, sending reporters on his plane a bag of pretzels with a note from "POTUS" saying, "Chew slowly." Presidents live in the ultimate fishbowl. Just ask Bush's dad, who famously barfed on the Japanese prime minister. Here's hoping W. stays healthy. "President Bush traveled along the Mississippi River today to argue that international trade is the way out of the American recession," the New York Times says, "arguing for a critical trade bill stuck in the Senate while nursing and joking about the wounds he suffered Sunday night when he fainted after swallowing a pretzel. "Mr. Bush appeared in a good mood despite a half-dollar sized abrasion on his left cheek, the result of hitting a coffee table or the floor as he fell off the couch in the White House residence. His spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said that Mr. Bush's doctor checked the president again early this morning at the White House, and approved the president's two-day economic swing after concluding that the incident had no deeper cause than swallowing the pretzel the wrong way. Mr. Bush was alone at the time of the incident, except for his two dogs, who were sitting with him on the couch. "The president said today that he did not remember much about the incident other than waking up and seeing that 'Barney the terrier was looking at me funny.' "When not explaining the odd incident, Mr. Bush today sounded much like his predecessor, Bill Clinton, visiting a John Deere factory that exports a quarter of its combine harvesters to make the case that free trade agreements ultimately lead to new jobs. But Mr. Bush offers a somewhat different version of the old arguments, weaving his call for vigilance against terrorism to his arguments for lower taxes, an economic stimulus bill, and new trade accords that he insists will boost American exports." USA Today has the inevitable sidebar: "As if pretzels weren't having a tough enough time. "No less than the President of the United States has now added to their woes. The White House says President Bush is fully recovered from Sunday's incident – when a pretzel lodged in the president's throat, causing him to choke, faint and bump his head. "The president's fine. But the $1.2 billion pretzel industry is ailing. The pretzel giants were working overtime Monday to find out what brand Bush was eating. Industry executives say it was a small, round pretzel. But White House officials declined to release the brand's name. "'We've been trying to learn all day what brand it was,' says Claude O'Connor, vice president of marketing at Snyder's of Hanover. "That probably doesn't matter. Pretzel sales have been down or flat for five years. With little innovation, analysts say, the industry appears to be in dire need of a creative kick in the taste buds." Maybe they should find out what the broccoli companies did during Bush Senior's reign. </html>