When your wife or girlfriend asks why you’re watching the women’s beach volleyball at next month’s Olympics, you can honestly say, “for their support of President Bush”:

Later about a half-dozen Olympians, including the beach volleyball team of Misty May-Treanor & Kerri Walsh that won the gold-medal at the 2004 Athens Summer Games, spoke to reporters staked out in the White House driveway. “It’s such an honor to be here, to shake his hand, and just to know everything he’s doing to keep us safe here at home and abroad,” said Walsh. “He’s a very special man. He has, you know, the weight of the world on top of him and he’s so charismatic and he has that twinkle in his eye.”