The drive on Sunday was a good seven hours – a weekend trip to Virginia and the return to New York. Hours in the car flipping from one radio channel to the next. On one station, the news at the top of the hour. The war followed by the golf.
Truth be told, no other country in recently recorded history has been able to juggle so many balls in the air at one time – the war in Iraq and the golf from Augusta in one breath.
Both reports came across with an air of the routine. Both featured winners and losers, in one the United States while in the other, a left-handed Canadian.
Not mentioned on the radio news along this stretch of Maryland highway were Northern Ireland and its again troubled peace process.
Bush had been and gone to Hillsborough days before. Richard Haass, hard-working and widely respected though he might be, doesn't make the local AM dial.
With regard to Iraq, President Bush's sojourn in Hillsborough might go down as a latter day Yalta. With regard to the peace process, well, the jury is still out.
It wasn't all about the north anyway so the overnight visit never risked being a presidential Waterloo. But even if it had been judged so, would the president have lost much sleep on the flight back to Washington?
Not as much as he would have lost had Operation Iraqi Freedom become stuck in the sand in the way the staccato peace process quickly became ensnared in the lush sward of Co Down only hours after the presidential feet took leave of it.
Perhaps the hiccup was all bad karma, brought about by the White House's apparent confusion over Irish geography, a failing that led to the surprisingly rapid evaporation of the anticipated post-visit political choreography.
Whatever... but the impression may well have taken hold in some corners of the White House by now that it was easier to secure regime change in Baghdad than it was to ensure political regimen change in Belfast. If that view has taken hold, it's not good at all.
Irish Americans, whatever their political stripe, are not inclined to take lightly a seeming insult to their president.
So if the White House lets it be known that President Bush felt let down by the lack of bonhomie after his overnight visit, many who have followed the twists and turns of the peace process, who have invested time and energy in its ultimate success, will feel let down too. Could disappointment lead to disengagement?
Historians might argue over how to precisely evaluate the role of the USA in the search for a lasting settlement in Northern Ireland. But nobody would argue that the decision by President Clinton to bridge the distance gap between Washington and the three capitals of the Troubles – Belfast, London and Dublin – wasn't a hugely significant mould breaker.
That at the very least President Bush inherited the Clinton initiative and, while he has invested far less personal time and energy in the peace process than his predecessor, he has placed it in capable diplomatic hands, most especially those of Mr Haass.
Agreement in Northern Ireland is still held up as a foreign policy priority for Washington. But if real agreement remains elusive, how long before active participation devolves into mere lip service?
It's a question all the parties should ponder at a time when the world's geopolitical tectonic plates have been given a mighty kick in the rear by Uncle Sam.
Mr Haass and his latest efforts in Northern Ireland might not have made the Maryland radio stations but they did secure space over the weekend in the New York Times, a reliable barometer when it comes to evaluating Washington's concerns in the world. Mr Haass's strong words, aimed at both Sinn Féin and the IRA, were noted by the Times.
"Mr Haass's statement," the report said, "departed from the usual custom in the politics of Northern Ireland of avoiding assigning responsibility for breakdowns in peace negotiations to one side or the other."
Perhaps. But this is a time for departures, a time for 'old Europe' and 'new Europe'.
The Bush administration is on a roll, out to change the way the world does its business.
Northern Ireland, tucked away in a corner of Europe that is viewed as being neither old nor new, is not immune to Washington's impatience or even its hubris.
The counterweight to such impatience, interestingly enough, is currently more British than Irish – more Tony Blair than anything else.
Irish American votes and the soft spot America supposedly has for the old sod are now less dependable factors in keeping Washington focused on the rollercoaster peace process than is a sense of loyalty to Blair, the most reliable of the European allied leaders during the build-up to and execution of the war against Saddam Hussein.
Blair stands especially tall in the eyes of those pundits and think-tank types who both shape and reflect the Bush cabinet's view of Europe and its importance or lack thereof.
Bertie Ahern and the Republic are either not mentioned at all in the old versus new Europe doctrine or somehow fall into a neutral third category by virtue of geographic location or the Republic's role in a process that is important to Washington's most favoured ally, Britain.
Rather like Scandinavia, Ireland, north and south, is in another realm, not quite of the continent that is lately causing such umbrage in Washington. But such exclusion from the sharpest cuts of the Bush administration is not guaranteed in perpetuity.
The words of Mr Haass should be sifted and absorbed by all who see Washington's role in the peace process as being vital now and for as long as the process runs.
