Dan Froomkin has the scoop on the president’s recent scramble for photo ops to replace the misfire of the king of all photo ops:

Yesterday, at Ft. Polk in Louisiana, the backdrop was spectacular: thousands of rowdily cheering soldiers yelling “USA!” and “Hoo-ah!” Nothing staged about that, was there?

Well, as William Taylor reports this morning in the Town Talk of nearby Alexandria, La.: “Before President Bush landed at the airfield here Tuesday, Command Sgt. Maj. Iuniasolua T. Savusa gave the troops permission to break protocol.

“‘Forget it for this one day,’ he said.

“Instead of coming to attention at the sounding of ‘Hail to the Chief,’ they were encouraged to cheer.

“They even practiced yelling, but the practice wasn’t nearly as noisy as the real thing once Bush was introduced by Fort Polk commander Brig. Gen. Jason Kamiya.”

And just when did the White House plan this trip, anyway? Before or after the recent controversy over Bush’s National Guard duty?

“There’s no relation to recent events,” insisted press secretary Scott McClellan, who added that the White House had been in touch with the Pentagon for a couple of weeks, although he couldn’t vouch for when base officials were brought into the loop.

The print pool reporter for the day, Maura Reynolds of the Los Angeles Times, asked one of the base spokesmen, Samantha Bingham, when they learned of the president’s impending visit. “She said they received official notification on Saturday, and heard rumors of it perhaps three days before that. Definitely not more than a week.”

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