The Bush in the Bubble

[Rspaight]

Bush will `go on with life'
Defends refusal to meet protester
Sunday, August 14, 2005
KEN HERMAN
Cox News Service

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush, noting that lots of people want to talk to the president and "it's also important for me to go on with my life," on Saturday defended his decision not to meet with the grieving mom of a soldier killed in Iraq.

Bush said he is aware of the anti-war sentiments of Cindy Sheehan and others who have joined her protest near the Bush ranch.

"But whether it be here or in Washington or anywhere else, there's somebody who has got something to say to the president, that's part of the job," Bush said on the ranch. "And I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say."

"But," he added, "I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life."

The comments came prior to a bike ride on the ranch with journalists and aides. It also came as the crowd of protesters grew in support of Sheehan, the California mother who came here Aug. 6 demanding to talk to Bush about the death of her son Casey. Sheehan arrived earlier in the week with about a half dozen supporters. As of yesterday (Saturday) there were about 300 anti-war protesters and approximately 100 people supporting the Bush Administration. In addition to the two-hour bike ride, Bush's Saturday schedule included an evening Little League Baseball playoff game, a lunch meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a nap, some fishing and some reading. "I think the people want the president to be in a position to make good, crisp decisions and to stay healthy," he said when asked about bike riding while a grieving mom wanted to speak with him. "And part of my being is to be outside exercising."

On Friday, Bush's motorcade drove by the protest site en route to a Republican fund-raising event at a nearby ranch.

As Bush rolled by, Sheehan held a sign that said, "Why do you make time for donors and not for me?"

[Dob]

I'm thinking that, by this point, Cindy Sheehan has realized that actually talking to Bush is a total waste of time (aside from her own personal reasons). Perhaps from the very beginning she expected the cold shoulder, but I'd bet she never thought Bush would turn out to be this callous.

Does Bush really expect anyone to sympathize with his ridiculous complaint that giving her 15 minutes will cut into his leisure so much that it will impair his ability to make "good, crisp decisions"? (as if)

Predictable Bush response: "So I suppose that everyone is entitled to 15 minutes of my time?" Not everyone, dumbass...but how about a grieving mother (thanks to your bonehead war) who has been in the news every day for the past week.

Add "ignore her and she'll eventually go away" to your growing list of failing strategies.

[Rspaight]

Does Bush really expect anyone to sympathize with his ridiculous complaint that giving her 15 minutes will cut into his leisure so much that it will impair his ability to make "good, crisp decisions"? (as if)

Exactly. I'm sure Bush's protest that he'd rather take a nap than do his job resonates well with the working Joe.

Rove must be too busy talking to his lawyers to help out with this one...

Ryan

[balthazar]

Predictable Bush response: "So I suppose that everyone is entitled to 15 minutes of my time?" Not everyone, dumbass...but how about a grieving mother (thanks to your bonehead war) who has been in the news every day for the past week.

And what then? What if he did talk to her? Would that really make her happy? Probably not. If he withdrew from Iraq, would that really make her happy? Probably not. Talking with her might get her to go away, and look good for the media and blah blah blah, but ultimately it's a no-win situation. What she really wants is her son back, and nothing's going to do that.

[Rspaight]

Talking with her might get her to go away, and look good for the media and blah blah blah, but ultimately it's a no-win situation.

No-win? I'm not so sure.

I can't imagine how talking to her and giving some show of empathy and a healthy dose of "your son died for freedom" and a big ol' hug could be *less* damaging than his current "I'd rather take a nap" stance.

I mean, sheesh, all the guy has to do is grab a couple of Secret Service agents, a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses and head down to the end of his driveway and reap huge PR benefits. But instead he just sits back and digs himself in deeper every day. It's frankly baffling.

Ryan

[balthazar]

On second thought, it does make sense.

[Dob]

If he withdrew from Iraq, would that really make her happy? Probably not.

Happiness is relative, but I think she would consider her vigil a success if it led to a faster US withdrawal from Iraq.

[Patrick M]

What is a "crisp" decision?

[Rspaight]

What is a "crisp" decision?

According to the dictionary, "marked by clarity, conciseness, and briskness."

In other words, not overburdened by complexity or reflection.

Ryan

[Patrick M]

[krabapple]

As prixy would say, it's a decision you make after you're *baked*, man.

[czeskleba]

But instead he just sits back and digs himself in deeper every day. It's frankly baffling.

I think he is afraid that talking to her will make him look like he's admitting he made a mistake. And his instinct to avoid acknowledging mistakes seems to override everything for him, even political common sense.

[dudelsack]

But instead he just sits back and digs himself in deeper every day. It's frankly baffling.

I think he is afraid that talking to her will make him look like he's admitting he made a mistake. And his instinct to avoid acknowledging mistakes seems to override everything for him, even political common sense.

Actually he's gone a good distance not admitting mistakes. You think he would have been re-elected if he had declared Iraq a mistake before the election? He projects the image of a winner, and people buy in...
In fact, I think that my beloved liberals couldn't possibly have devised a better illustration of that fact if they had sat at a table and brainstormed, heh.

[Rspaight]

Biking Toward Nowhere

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: August 17, 2005

How could President Bush be cavorting around on a long vacation with American troops struggling with a spiraling crisis in Iraq?

Wasn't he worried that his vacation activities might send a frivolous signal at a time when he had put so many young Americans in harm's way?

"I'm determined that life goes on," Mr. Bush said stubbornly.

That wasn't the son, believe it or not. It was the father - 15 years ago. I was in Kennebunkport then to cover the first President Bush's frenetic attempts to relax while reporters were pressing him about how he could be taking a month to play around when he had started sending American troops to the Persian Gulf only three days before.

On Saturday, the current President Bush was pressed about how he could be taking five weeks to ride bikes and nap and fish and clear brush even though his occupation of Iraq had become a fiasco. "I think it's also important for me to go on with my life," W. said, "to keep a balanced life."

Pressed about how he could ride his bike while refusing to see a grieving mom of a dead soldier who's camped outside his ranch, he added: "So I'm mindful of what goes on around me. On the other hand, I'm also mindful that I've got a life to live and will do so."

Ah, the insensitivity of reporters who ask the President Bushes how they can expect to deal with Middle East fighting while they're off fishing.

The first President Bush told us that he kept a telephone in his golf cart and his cigarette boat so he could easily stay on top of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. But at least he seemed worried that he was sending the wrong signal, as his boating and golfing was juxtaposed on the news with footage of the frightened families of troops leaving for the Middle East.

"I just don't like taking questions on serious matters on my vacation," the usually good-natured Bush senior barked at reporters on the golf course. "So I hope you'll understand if I, when I'm recreating, will recreate." His hot-tempered oldest son, who was golfing with his father that day, was even more irritated. "Hey! Hey!" W. snapped at reporters asking questions on the first tee. "Can't you wait until we finish hitting, at least?"

Junior always had his priorities straight.

As W.'s neighbors get in scraps with the antiwar forces coalescing around the ranch; as the Pentagon tries to rustle up updated armor for our soldiers, who are still sitting ducks in the third year of the war; as the Iraqi police we train keep getting blown up by terrorists, who come right back every time U.S. troops beat them up; as Shiites working on the Iraqi constitution conspire with Iran about turning Iraq into an Islamic state that represses women; and as Iraq hurtles toward a possible civil war, W. seems far more oblivious than his father was with his Persian Gulf crisis.

This president is in a truly scary place in Iraq. Americans can't get out, or they risk turning the country into a terrorist haven that will make the old Afghanistan look like Cipriani's. Yet his war, which has not accomplished any of its purposes, swallows ever more American lives and inflames ever more Muslim hearts as W. reads a book about the history of salt and looks forward to his biking date with Lance Armstrong on Saturday.

The son wanted to go into Iraq to best his daddy in the history books, by finishing what Bush senior started. He swept aside the warnings of Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell and didn't bother to ask his father's advice. Now he is caught in the very trap his father said he feared: that America would get bogged down as "an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land," facing a possibly "barren" outcome.

It turns out that the people of Iraq have ethnic and religious identities, not a national identity. Shiites and Kurds want to suppress the Sunnis who once repressed them and break off into their own states, smashing the Bush model kitchen of democracy.

At long last, a senior Bush official admits that administration officials can no longer cling to their own version of reality. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning," the official told The Washington Post.

They had better start absorbing and shedding a lot faster, before many more American kids die to create a pawn of Iran. And they had better tell the Boy in the Bubble, who continues to dwell in delusion, hailing the fights and delays on the Iraqi constitution as "a tribute to democracy."

The president's pedaling as fast as he can, but he's going nowhere.

[Bennett Cerf]

Caption:
Bill Moyer, 73, wears a "Bullshit Protector" flap over his ear while President George W. Bush addresses the Veterans of Foreign Wars.