Underneath the jocularity which must follow from a Bush supporter not knowing about the no-fly zone and triggering hysteria in Washington a week after Patriot missiles were trained on a cloud, there is a far more serious question.
Who is going to be sacrificed so Bush and DeLay can be safe?
The interceptor jets would have shot down that light aircraft if it had gotten much closer to the White House. Presidential authority has already been delegated so Rumsfeld could give the shoot order. There is no way that anyone could detetmine where a shot down aircraft, perhaps containing large amounts of high explosive if it were real, would land. The Washington area is however fairly densely populated, especially within those 3 miles of the White House.
The White House and the Capitol building are historic but as we saw, they can be evacuated very quickly and the occupants sent to a safe distance. Just far enough so that they would be under the falling plane? Patriot missiles are far from failsafe as we saw during the Iraq war. What happens if in protecting the White House one locks on to a passenger jet approaching Reagan National? Or if it overshoots and lands on a local high school? Should the people be sacrificed so the buildings that house the people's servants do not get damaged?