The nucleus of the bubble, referred to within the White House as "the package," consists of the President, his senior staff, the Secret Service detail assigned specifically to him, and a small pool of reporters. The package essentially isolates the President from the rest of the bubble and the outside world. Inside the package life is serene; humming outside is the 24/7 infrastructure required to keep the peace.

The head of the road show in the Bush 43 Administration was Joe Hagin, former deputy chief of staff in charge of operations, who believes in striking a balance between protecting the President and allowing him some exposure in public. "You can't lock him in a steel box and move him around," Hagin says. "You have to get him out."

Hagin would begin planning Bush's foreign trips up to a year ahead. Every November or December, he'd sit down with the White House chief of staff and national security adviser to block out what usually amounted to five or six annual presidential trips overseas. Some were built-in, such as the yearly Group of Eight meeting of industrialized nations or the NATO summits, both must-attends for the American President. But others, like Bush's trip to Africa in February 2008, were designed to highlight administration policies and to show the White House flag.

"My geography's not good enough to do it without a map," Hagin says. So with maps unfolded all over the conference table in the national security adviser's office, and with the Air Force One pilots on hand to consult, the group would figure out what stops made geographic sense. There were all-important political considerations as well. Bush 43, who grew increasingly unpopular overseas as his administration progressed, often augmented his European trips with stops in former Soviet-bloc nations like Albania, where he could count on pro-democracy, pro-American crowds to cheer him on.

The White House Communications Agency, or WHCA, builds its own communication system for each destination, and on foreign trips the leader of the free world can push a button on the telephone in his hotel suite and be instantly connected to a direct-dial U.S. system. Bush hasn't carried a personal cell phone for security reasons, but he had access to any number of them while traveling.

One cell is specifically for the presidential limousine, where there is never a problem with background noise. People who have been inside say that the limo is eerily serene, as if the outside world were on mute. The President can see the crowd, but he can't hear it, especially not over the deep rumble of the Beast's big V-8.