Yesterday President Obama had a meeting at the Department of the Interior and decided to break with tradition and walk over.  With U.S. Secret Service in tow, the President proclaimed “The bear is loose!” via the pool reports. A black suit jacket slung over his left shoulder, he greeted tourists and DC regulars along the way “How’s business?” he asked a woman selling pretzels, hot dogs and egg rolls. “Yeah, business is doing all right,” the woman said.

The same thing happened on an episode of the West Wing, but was used for a political tactic instead of a simple enjoyment of the afternoon air. During a government shutdown and negotiations with the Republican Speaker, President Bartlett headed up to The Hill and stopped along the way to speak to a group of tourists who couldn’t visit the monuments or museums. He gave them his pitch about fully funding the government and then walked up Constitution Avenue.

President Obama recalled the experience later during a speech on tourism in Coopertown, New York at the Baseball Hall of Fame:

“When it comes to tourism, the good news is we’ve got a great product to sell. People want to come here. I was reminded of that yesterday. I took a walk from the White House to the Department of the Interior building. Keep in mind, I don’t get a chance to take walks very often. (Laughter.) Secret Service gets a little stressed. But every once in a while I’m able to sneak off. I’m sort of like the circus bear that kind of breaks the chain, and I start taking off, and everybody starts whispering, the bear is loose! (Laughter.)

“So I got out, take a walk — it was a beautiful day. And even though I went for several blocks — it was probably about a 10-minute walk — in that little span of time, I met tourists from Germany, and Israel, and Brazil, and China, and Ukraine on the National Mall. The fact that people come from all over the world to see our parks, to see our monuments, is something we should take great pride in as Americans. And it’s good for our economy.”