Copy and Paste

LOS ANGELES (Feb. 10) - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Thursday he was blindsided by President George W. Bush's announcement of new details about a purported 2002 plot to crash a plane into a city skyscraper, but the White House and state officials said the mayor's office was contacted.

I'm amazed that the president would make this (announcement) on national TV and not inform us of these details through the appropriate channels," the mayor said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I don't expect a call from the president - but somebody."

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the administration "did reach out to officials in California and Los Angeles to let them know, I think it was yesterday, that the president would be talking about this."

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in 2003, had already begun planning the West Coast operation in October 2001, Bush said Thursday during a Washington speech. The hijackers were to use shoe bombs to blow open the cockpit door of a commercial jetliner, take control of the plane and crash it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, since renamed the US Bank Tower, Bush said.

Apparently, Thursday morning, Bush's crack team of public relations officials realized that they hadn't yet hammered out a bone-chilling, menacing terrorist "plot" that would show the need for wiretapping and citizen surveillance, and justify to the sheep, the ripping up of the American Constitution. So, out of the pressure of time constraints, they decided to copy and paste from previous headline grabbers.

P.R. #1 : "Let's see, shoe bombs really frighten them."

P.R. #2: "I don't think we should use New York. New Yorkers made it through the transit strike. They won't care about this

P.R. #1: "Let's try L.A. this time. It'll be fun to watch all those Hollywood liberals shaking in their loafers."

P.R. #2: "Yeah," (chuckles) "Good Night and Good Luck, Hollywood."

P.R. #1 "Hey, what's the tallest building in L.A.?"

P.R. #2 "Should we use Sadaam?"

P.R. #1 "No, let's use some other guy with a funny name!"

P.R. #2 "I hope Scott doesn't fuck it up in front of the cameras again."

P.R. #1 "Yeah, what a dumbass."