Executive Elm Toppled, Bushes Intact

June 26, 2006 9:27 PM

Pull out a US $20 bill. Take a look at the picture of the White House. See that tree peeking in from the right, the 140 year old elm that's been there since Andrew Johnson? Well, it's gone. Yup. Fallen over, thanks to the soaker summer storms which have been hammering the Mid-Atlantic in recent days. Cleanup has started, but no word on whether the $20 bill will be needing another update.
posted by brownpau (37 comments total)

Not to worry, however, as clearing fallen brush is this administration's long suit.

(ugh, I feel like such a hack for going there, but somebody had to.)
posted by ChasFile at 9:43 PM on June 26, 2006

Can I derail...YES I CAN.

This summer in New England has been a copout for the ages. If this is an effect of global warming, I will derail off my path to only live 65 years and eat a pistol. What a fucking wet messy disappointment.
posted by rollbiz at 9:51 PM on June 26, 2006

No global warming tag, either....sheesh.
posted by rollbiz at 9:51 PM on June 26, 2006

i wonder if they will change the design of the $20.
posted by lapolla at 9:55 PM on June 26, 2006

Great post - even for a non american.

In New Zealand we have our own issue with disappearng trees

Not that it is likely U2 will rename their track None tree hill
posted by Samuel Farrow at 9:56 PM on June 26, 2006

What a fucking wet messy disappointment.

That's what he said.

Sorry...

In all seriousness, this sucks. I suppose it was bound to happen...it is 140 years old.
posted by Pacheco at 9:56 PM on June 26, 2006

This never would have happened if Al Gore were president.
posted by homunculus at 9:56 PM on June 26, 2006

No global warming tag, either....sheesh.

Well, there is still a debate over whether it’s manmade...
posted by homunculus at 10:00 PM on June 26, 2006

Or, you know, whatever.
posted by homunculus at 10:01 PM on June 26, 2006

Gore probably would've chosen to live in the damn tree instead of the White House. Damn hippy, he is.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 10:03 PM on June 26, 2006

Yeah, maybe work in dutch elm->dutch cartoon scandal->terrorism in there somehow, matt.

Or you can go the "if a tree falls in the Rose Garden, and nobody's there to hear it" route, or the "Presidential branches fall on executive branch" route, or the "Even vegetation attempting to flee doomed, lame duck presidency. 'Death a sweet release,' says tree" route or the obvious brush clearing route I went earlier or the environmentalist Al Gore way or the Katrina-response-hurricane-comeuppance route.

Either way, Jay Leno has quite a night ahead of him tommorow.
posted by ChasFile at 10:06 PM on June 26, 2006

The jury's still out on whether the tree fell. We need more research.
posted by brundlefly at 10:07 PM on June 26, 2006

Added a tag.
posted by brownpau at 10:10 PM on June 26, 2006

A good one, at that!
posted by brundlefly at 10:14 PM on June 26, 2006

.
posted by thejoshu at 11:12 PM on June 26, 2006

Didn't they get the arborist's briefing two months ago, "Elm Tree Determined to Fall Down in Next Big Storm?"
posted by dw at 11:16 PM on June 26, 2006

Actually quite sad. Elm trees are fairly rare in many parts of USistan.
posted by bardic at 11:21 PM on June 26, 2006

Actually quite sad. Elm trees are fairly rare in many parts of USistan.

Thanks, Dutch elm disease!

The house I grew up in had three elms planted in the 1950s. None of them stand now. We cut one down after the Christmas 1987 ice storm, and the other two were removed by the new owners in the mid-1990s. All three of them had Dutch elm and the little yellow bugs that followed after them.
posted by dw at 11:34 PM on June 26, 2006

Portent.
posted by shoepal at 12:34 AM on June 27, 2006

What's with the photoshopped dude in the cowboy hat in that "Cleanup has started" link?
posted by slater at 1:07 AM on June 27, 2006

The jury's still out on whether the tree fell. We need more research.

Nice.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:44 AM on June 27, 2006

slater - It's someone in the Executive Staff, clearing out brush.
posted by brownpau at 5:16 AM on June 27, 2006

God heard to mutter: "Damn, I missed."

Rear Adm Harry Harris accuses tree of "an act of botanical warfare waged against us."
posted by Pallas Athena at 6:25 AM on June 27, 2006

There was an elm where I grew up that was nearly four feet across at the base with a spread of about 70 feet and probably 60 feet in height. It was a huge, amazing tree. One year a few limbs died. The next year about 1/2 of the tree leafed out. The next year none of it leafed out. There were also five other smaller elms in the general area, they all died as well within the next year.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 6:27 AM on June 27, 2006

They should give it to Jimmy Carter (he's a woodworker)
posted by zeoslap at 6:35 AM on June 27, 2006

There has always not been an elm tree there.
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 6:36 AM on June 27, 2006

I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.
posted by stbalbach at 7:06 AM on June 27, 2006

Oh my god, a hundred and forty year old tree falls and people are screaming global warming?!?

You all do realize that trees fall EVERY DAY and have done so since the EXISTENCE of trees, don't you?

Somebody call the New York Times, I'm sure there is a way to spin this story so that it was George Bush himself who found Washington's old hatchet and went out to cut that tree down himself.
posted by tadellin at 7:28 AM on June 27, 2006

tadellin misses sarcasm, lack of film at 11.
posted by mikeh at 7:59 AM on June 27, 2006

I want my money back.
posted by crunchland at 8:07 AM on June 27, 2006

tadellin of course your right no single event can be pinned on global warming (global warming is climate, weather is weather, apples and oranges), it would be a straw-man argument and easy to refute as you have done. But, there is a statistical probability of more extreme weather events caused by global warming. This particular event is fairly extreme - there are places in the area that have not seen this much rain since Agnus (hurricane) in the early 70s. The gully in my backyard is eroded more in the past 2 days than it has in the preceding 20 years. Of course these things happen even without climate change. But they are happening more commonly - look at New England earlier this year, the same exact thing happened with a stalled high-pressure and train-loads of gulf moisture dumping on the same spots for days on end. The stats show these extreme weather events becoming the norm. The tree is symbolic.
posted by stbalbach at 8:18 AM on June 27, 2006

We've been overlooking the obvious Tree / Bush material. The tree doesn't fall far from the Bush. Help me out, here.
posted by borborygmi at 8:33 AM on June 27, 2006

.
posted by nickyskye at 11:13 AM on June 27, 2006

Added a tag.

PS: Small spelling error.
posted by deadfather at 12:31 PM on June 27, 2006

Not symbolic of global warming or extreme weather.

Symbolic of the end of America.
posted by banished at 3:13 PM on June 27, 2006

I had to look up who Andrew Johnsom was. (seventeenth President)
posted by BillsR100 at 7:55 PM on June 27, 2006

BillsR100: I had to look up who Andrew Johnsom [sic] was. (seventeenth President)

That's something to be proud of.
posted by Sinner at 11:14 AM on July 7, 2006