President Has a Nose for News as He Suffers From Hay Fever

Dozens of cameras whirred as a sniffling President Bush coughed and blew his nose. “It’s news: a little hay fever in the air around here,” the President apologized to his audience.

Then, looking straight at the now-quieted cameras, Bush raised his handkerchief with a flourish for an exaggerated honk of his nose.

Flashes lit the room like lightning and electric camera motors hummed in unison.

“They’ve got their job to do and I got mine,” the President told a gathering of state attorneys general in the White House’s Roosevelt Room.

Then he rubbed his nose again. The cameras again came to life.

“Come on, you guys,” Bush scolded.

The President, who suffers from allergies, said he “got hit” with the bout of hay fever Sunday. He spent the weekend at the well-foliated presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland.

Tom Miller, attorney general of Iowa and president of the National Assn. of Attorneys General, told Bush: “Thank you for being with us, and thank you for the education in Washington that, when the President sneezes, it makes news.”