America at Large: What is it with these Bush presidents, anyway? You may recall that a decade ago the incumbent's father, George Bush, lost both face and stomach when he first barfed on one of his hosts and then passed out at a state dinner in Japan. Now the son sits down to watch a football game and emerges from the experience looking as if he'd just gone a few three-minute rounds with Mike Tyson.

Although I wasn't in the White House rec room on Sunday evening when the Miami Dolphins nearly killed the Leader of the Free World, I have a pretty good guess as to precisely what the fateful moment might have been.

Here was George W Bush, watching the National Football League play-off game between the Dolphins and the Baltimore Ravens. With just under nine minutes left in the game, Miami appeared on the verge of getting themselves back into the game when quarterback Jay Fiedler dropped back to pass and lofted a spiral in the direction of wide receiver James McKnight, who was streaking for the goalline.

McKnight had opened up a two-stride lead on Ravens defender Duane Starks, and Fiedler's pass couldn't have been better thrown. Somehow it slipped right through McKnight's hands, bounced off his shoulder pad, and careered into the air, dropping straight back down into the arms of Starks, who gathered it in without even breaking stride and headed off in the opposite direction.

Game, set, and match.

The next thing anybody knew, the fans were pouring out of Pro Player Stadium, and the president of the United States was rolling around on the floor turning an apoplectic blue, a pretzel lodged in his throat.

Now, we're only guessing that Bush was rooting for the Dolphins, but it's a pretty fair assumption. Next to his native Texas, Florida is the state nearest and dearest to the President's heart. His younger brother is the governor there, and it was his controversial win in that state which eventually provided his margin of victory in the last election.

So what do the Dolphins - the only home team to lose in last weekend's first play-off round - have in common with the president? Answer: they both choke at home.

There wasn't much point in trying to cover this one up, since the visual evidence was indelibly etched on the presidential face. The official explanation for the shiner below his left eye - that Bush first (a) choked on the pretzel, (b) then fainted, and (c) landed face-first on the carpet, where (d) his spectacles cut him high on the cheekbone, after which he was (e) revived by the First Dogs licking his face - doubtlessly came after presidential advisers concluded that nobody was going to fall for the old "I walked into a door" story again.

Now, your first reaction to the news was probably the same as mine, which is undoubtedly why the White House almost immediately issued a communiqué from Dr. Richard Tubb insisting that "there was absolutely, positively, no suggestion on physical examination that any alcohol was involved" in the misfortune suffered by the nation's most prominent teetotaler.

To which we would merely ask: name the last time you saw anybody eat a pretzel without a beer in his other hand.

The presidential mishap has, needless to say, sparked comparison to similar adventures by Bush's predecessors: It might be a stretch to tie his father's unfortunate experience with Japanese cuisine to the world of sport, but Bill Clinton's tumble down the stairs at Greg Norman's house, Gerald Ford taking target practice on golfing spectators, and Jimmy Carter's encounter with the "killer rabbit" on an ill-fated canoe trip surely qualify.

And who could forget the night Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, the opponent for Bush père in the 1988 presidential election, broke his arm when he took a spill while running a late-night foot race against his New Jersey counterpart Brendan Byrne across the front lawn of the Governor's mansion?

Surely some irony exists in the fact that the actual "doomsday" box containing the codes for unleashing global nuclear attack is known, in Secret Service parlance, as "the football". We can't help wondering: is it really wise that the president should be left alone with this device and his television remote in the same room, at least until the play-offs are over?

In the days since the "fainting spell" America's television talk-show hosts have, needless to say, had a field day with the episode. NBC's Jay Leno pointed out that the Secret Service had spent all this time worrying about Osama Bin Laden when the real enemy lurked in the form of "Mr Salty". On CBS's Late Night, David Letterman noted that Bush was only out cold for four seconds. "Fortunately," added Letterman, "it was the same four seconds Dick Cheney was conscious."

Listen, it could have been worse. What if his brother had been the governor of, say, North Carolina, where the Panthers went 1-15 this season? Why, Cheney might have been running the country by October.

None of this bodes very well for the White House Super Bowl Party two weeks from Sunday. Last we heard, Mrs Bush has ordered the caterer to revise the menu to include soft-serve ice cream, strained carrots and warm milk.