--John King, Senior National CorrespondentI was on the set of American Morning to talk presidential politics as the horrific pictures started coming in from Pakistan.
It is remarkable how technology has changed our business. While an anchor sat inches away dealing with the breaking news, I was able to email officials at the White House, State Department and Crawford, Texas to get early word of what the Bush administration knew, and how it would react.
Questions about the security instability in Pakistan turned my memory back more than seven years, shortly after President Musharraf took power in a military coup.
I was covering the White House in March, 2000, when President Clinton made a controversial decision to go meet with Musharraf, and urge him to get back on a path to democracy.
As we waited at the airport for the President to land in Islamabad, a small jet with air force markings landed, and they rolled out the red carpet.
Off came Secret Service agents, and others in business suits. President Clinton, apparently, had arrived.
But then, a small, unmarked white jet swooped out of the sky. The first plane, that we thought as the President's, was a decoy; the unmarked jet was Air Force One, the designation given to any airplane carrying the President of the United States.
So worried were US officials about security that there also were more than a half dozen limousines. They pulled between two giant aircraft, and the president jumped into one. Then it was off to the meeting with Musharraf, under the most extraordinary presidential security arrangements I had ever seen.
