Yellow--No, Orange!--No, Red!--Wait, no--Orange!

You'd have to see this to truly get the level of absurdity--and if you want to, it's available at C-Span's main page.

Last night I tuned away from local fluff news just in time to capture the moment--Scott McClellan somehow sounded even more incoherent than usual, while the White House sheep press nodded and bleated--but looked suitably grave.

And what was this all about? a student pilot veering off-course:

The scare started at 11:28 a.m., when the Cessna was picked up by Federal Aviation Administration radar headed west by southwest, toward Washington from Maryland, as it approached a restricted air zone that is roughly the shape of a Mickey Mouse hat and covers the 23-mile area around each of the region's three major airports.

Mickey Mouse is about right. Let's see--it took almost an hour before anyone bothered with something so simple as TRYING TO CALL THEM ON THE RADIO:

The government response planes initially had trouble communicating with the two men. Ultimately, after the Black Hawk helicopter read the identification code on the plane and transmitted it to air traffic controllers, the pilots were reached and told to make an emergency landing.

The plane left the restricted air space around the capital by 12:24 p.m. and after being led by military escort, it landed at a small airport in Frederick, Md., about 15 minutes later.

This country is truly getting whacked.